The responsibility of ensuring a safe supply chain environment and the challenges that come with it fall with logistics professionals across all industries. The transportation and logistics industry face a particular challenge because its business depends on mobile assets that travel the nation’s roads, rails, and national borders. Keeping cargo, vehicles, and people safe is essential not only to supply chain viability, but also to business success.
Here are 5 ways to help ensure an overall safe supply chain environment:
- Maintain high awareness of local and nationwide security threats, and protection strategies
- Design security programs that keep mobile assets and cargo safe and (see below for tips)
- Create workplaces that keep employees secure
- Innovate to establish new best practices for securing supply chains
- Engage, educate, and collaborate with government agencies and industry partners to share security-related information
Security programs that keep assets safe
Designing security programs that keep our public mobile engagements safe and secure protects cargo, as well as the surrounding supply chain environment, by preventing threats to the network.
Following are some security practices that keep trucks and cargo safe:
- Web based technology for scheduling and managing security activities
- GPS monitoring of vehicles
- Real-time vehicle monitoring using security-trained staff—because electronic monitoring is not enough
- Extra security measures at cross-border locations to anticipate theft, extortion, bribery
- Trailer seals and lock
- C-TPAT certification and FAST participation to expedite border crossings and reduce exposure
Security: A Shared Responsibility
When it comes to security, the entire industry benefits from working in tandem rather than competing against one another. Effective partnering between industry and government agencies allows for sharing of information, experiences, and solutions that protect U.S. supply chains, as well as the general public. Organized threats such as terrorism and smuggling require collective action to deter.
According to Bill Anderson, who is one of the country’s most influential security executives as recognized by Security magazine in 2011, “Our adversaries strive to overcome our defenses. When we are static they are able to observe, test, and plan methods to defeat those defenses. Our challenge is to keep innovating, base on shared information and effective communication with our partners.”
To learn more about ensuring a safe supply chain, click here to download our Corporate Sustainability Report.