ecratum News

As a company, you know that your employees are as valuable as your products themselves - if not more valuable. Nevertheless, it can be hard sometimes to know the workers conditions in your supply chain. One way to bring transparency in your supply chain is to ask for a social compliance certification such as the BSCI or the SA8000 standard.

We will today learn more about the SA8000 certification and how to implement it in your company.

Chemicals and hazardous substances are among the most controlled and regulated goods on the market, but they are also the most used in our daily products such as cleaning products or clothes. In the European Union, every chemical has to be registered by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and to follow the REACH procedure.

We will today learn more about the REACH regulation and how to apply it to your company.

Hygiene and safety are key aspects of the food industry. While most of the focus is made on the food production, it is important not to forget packaging safety in order to avoid any hazard and contamination. An easy way to be sure of your packaging safety is to get them from a certified manufacturer. Several options exist such as the BRC/IoP or the FEFCO GMP for the cardboard packagings.

We will today learn more about one of the most popular packaging certification: the DIN EN 15593 certification.

When launching a new project or a new product, you will often need new supplies and new suppliers. In order to get a qualitative product for the best price, you will need to go through a long phase of supplier selection and to compare the different offers you get.

To make the selection easier, you can request several documents from your potential new supplier such as an RFI, an RFP and/or an RFQ.

We will today learn more about those three documents and give you tips to always request the one you really need.

Production and procurement are both at the core of every company. Without them, no product can be made and without product, no business can be made. Therefore, knowing your suppliers and mastering the whole supply chain is at the same time critical to run a business and an endless source of possible optimization.

While End-to-End (E2E) Supply Chain visibility is more important than ever, we will today see how SRM (and more specifically SRM tools) can help you achieve a full visibility on your complete supply chain.

Sustainability, from the latin “sustinere” meaning “to hold up”, is traditionally made of three pillars: environmental sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. To achieve “sustainable development”, as defined by the Brundtland commission in 1987 - the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”, the environmental sustainability must become a primary focus. The food industry is no exception, and must also do its best to limit its impact on nature to become more sustainable.

Today, we will review five sustainability certificates which can help you make your products more sustainable.

Information and documentation are the basis of every business. Some of those documents are internal and specific to a company and other have to be requested from other companies and suppliers - and this is where the problems start. While document requests should be quick and easy, the task can easily become a financial, time and energy consuming hassle.

After discussing the mistakes to avoid with document management, we will today give you five tips to make your document request as smooth and efficient as possible.

With energy costs rising and an increasing number of environmental alarms turning on, it is more important than ever to make companies as eco-friendly as possible. Energy management is one of the ways to decrease your company's carbon footprint and reduce the bill at the end of the month. While a large number of firms are turning to the ISO 50001 to manage their energy supply, every company should be concerned by this issue - especially the Small and Medium Enterprises with limited resources.

We will today discover seven tips to easily implement energy management and why it is important for SMEs.

An easy way to keep continuous improvement central for your company is to implement a continuous improvement cycle which will repeat itself and bring constant progress and innovation to your processes and products. One of the most used cycles is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle, broadly through departments and industries.

We will today learn more about the PDCA Cycle and how to easily implement it in your company.

Energy has a double cost: a financial cost and an environmental cost. While the energy production is increasingly coming from sustainable sources such as solar or wind installations, another important aspect of energy management is the optimization and the reduction of energy waste.

Implementing an Energy Management System helps companies to reduce their energy bill and to make a gesture for the planet. One of the most popular standard to achieve this is the ISO 50001 certification.

We will today learn more about Energy Management and how the ISO 50001 can help you achieve your energy policy.