WERCSmart® Platform: Conflict Minerals

Conflict minerals carry a hidden humanitarian cost that affects a wide range of products, from toothpaste to technology. As regulatory changes and increased public scrutiny seek to eradicate the use of conflict minerals, manufacturers are facing complex challenges related to identifying, mitigating and reporting on areas of risk throughout the supply chain. UL provides customers a complete conflict minerals software solution, enabling manufacturers and retailers to make smarter purchasing decisions about the sourcing of materials, ingredients and products with clarity and confidence. Definition The WERCSmart® Platform: Conflict Minerals is a comprehensive decision-support system that enables manufacturers and retailers to collect, interpret and manage data up and down the supply chain. This scalable, Software as a Service (SaaS) platform has been extended to support customer needs related to the Reasonable Country of Origin Inquiry (RCOI) required by Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act. It also currently manages over 450,000 product UPCs for 7,400 suppliers selling to all 25 of the largest U.S. retailers. Benefits The WERCSmart® Platform: Conflict Minerals provides direct access to comprehensive and independently verified regulatory compliance data from suppliers around the world. With this real-time visibility across the supply chain, customers can compile and analyze product and supplier performance at every stage. This includes product composition data regarding the presence of tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold (3TG) minerals regulated by the Dodd-Frank Act. Suppliers gather survey responses from their own suppliers within the system, as a way to create a series of linked and validated party-to-party relationships, in order to effectively manage the gathering and reporting of information. This process repeats itself at each level of the supply chain, allowing each party to gather information upstream and report information downstream in a consistent manner. This allows the system to report on what has or hasn’t been completed, providing relevant information to down stream buyers, while allowing each party to control access to proprietary information from their supplier. With advanced access to data, customers can manage the entire supply chain before products or materials arrive, establishing greater control over compliance issues while minimizing risks and costs. Additionally, the WERCSmart® Platform: Conflict Minerals allows customers to: Distribute the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) conflict minerals questionnaire to suppliers subject to the requirements Focus resources on suppliers and products that have been identified as high risk based on survey responses and choice of smelters Receive notifications from the system to pursue suppliers who haven’t provided access to requested information Identify the use of conflict-free sourcing (CFS) smelters Report on program activity in aggregate for greater efficiency Streamline and share information and reports with multiple customers