Supplier certification is one way of managing suppliers. Are there cases where supplier certification is not a good idea ? Please explain.

You are a Supply Chain Procurement Manager working for a large manufacturing company located in North America. Recently, you have found out that one of your suppliers is in contravention of your company’s standards of engagement because they are employing persons aged 14 to 16 years of age. Whilst you would prefer to end the business relationship with this supplier immediately, you have to weigh up the ethical issues with the commercial considerations including; the low cost of the supplies and the history of reliability of delivery from this supplier. Required: Based on your knowledge of corporate social responsibility, as well as supply chain logistics, what is the best course of action in this situation? Discuss.

You have just started work as the Supply Chain Manager for Skateboards company These powered skate boards are a huge marketing success and the company owner now wants someone to look at his supply chain and see what efficiencies/savings can be made. One of your remits is to assess the supplier management strategy of the firm to ensure we are getting the most from our relationships in the supply network. You have asked (as a start) for a copy of this weeks purchases from Accounts and someone has kindly written some comments next to each entry on the payment run, this is printed overleaf. Look at this weeks purchases and think about the following;•Strategic importance of the item to the firm.•Supply risk to the firm (risk of non-exclusivity or even supply failure). The substitutability of the product.•The supplier relationship (b)  Next session you will be shown a matrix for categorising types of purchase and assigning suitable supplier strategies to pursue for each category.

What are the advantages of assigning numerical scores to the factors in a supplier scorecard?