Business, Freight News, Logistics

US publishes new supply chain security strategy

[ February 10, 2012   //   Chris ]

The US Department of Homeland Security has published its National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Security. It provides strategic guidance to departments and agencies within the US Government and identifies priorities for further co-operation with stakeholders.

Previous attempts by the Department to improve security, notably the 100% container scanning scheme have been criticised as impractical and indeed the programme has fallen into limbo.

In its latest document, the Government promises to resolve threats early to expedite the flow of legitimate commerce. By integrating security processes into supply chain operations, it will identify areas of concern and seek to resolve them as early in the process as possible.

It will also improve verification and detection capabilities to identify those goods that are not what they are represented to be, are contaminated, are not declared, or are prohibited; and to prevent cargo from being compromised or misdirected as it moves through the system.

It will also enhance security of infrastructure and transport to protect the supply chain and critical nodes, through limiting access and information to those with legitimate and relevant roles and responsibilities

At the same time it will maximize the flow of legitimate trade by modernising supply chain infrastructure and processes to meet future market opportunities, develop new mechanisms to facilitate low risk cargo, simplify trade compliance processes; and refine incentives to encourage enhanced stakeholder collaboration.

And to improve resilience of the global supply chain it will use risk management principles to identify and protect key assets, infrastructure, and support systems and promote implementation of sustainable operational processes and appropriate redundancy for those assets

At the same time, it will promote trade resumption policies and practicesto allow a coordinated restoration of the movement of goods following a potential disruption by developing and implementing national and global guidelines, standards, policies and programs.