Security coverage analysis of five European supply chain security initiatives

¶ … SCS initiative analysis has been talked about in detail. The main aim or purpose of this in-depth analysis is to explain in a better way the questions regarding the design, theoretical grounds, dynamics and the coverage of the supply security chain etc. Following are the kind of questions that have been tried to answer in this paper:

To what extent does the SCS initiative covers the security areas, human resource security, facility and cargo etc.

Among the phases in security management such as: recovery that is done from incidents of crime, crime detection and the prevention of crime, which ones are covered by the SCS initiatives and to what limit?

To the SCS initiative exactly what kind of supply chain actors are associated?

In what way are the improvement cycle steps (that are consistent) such as: planning, doing, checking and acting taken into consideration by the SCS initiatives?

With the SCS initiatives how exactly are the present European and national level security considered?

How do the SCS initiatives cover the prevention of the situational crimes?

The five SCS initiatives' overview

There were five SCS initiatives that were selected for this in-depth analysis that also have high European relevance. These initiatives were selected on the basis of the priorities that were expressed by the experts during the interviews. They are as follows:

1. EU AEO, EU Authorized Economic Operator.

2. TAPA, Transported Asset Protection Association, Freight Suppliers Minimum Security Requirements.

3. EU Port security directive.

4. ISO 28000 series, International Standards Organization, Security Management Systems for the supply chain.

5. IRU, International Road Union, Road Transport Security Guidelines.

4.3 The six step analysis -approach's overview

There was s six-step analysis method that was developed by the research team in order to come up with a comprehensive analysis of the SCS initiative's security approaches.

Given below is an explanation and motivation of each step of the analysis:

Analysis-1: Type of actors in the supply chain

In the first step of the analysis the supply chain actors have been simply observed and the five SCS initiatives have been covered. There are a total of three main supply chain actor groups:

1. Logistic companies such as: warehouse keepers, freight forwarders, carriers etc.

2. Trade / retail / wholesale.

3. Shippers / manufacturers.

In the supply chain operator survey this list of the supply chain actors has been used as well and it was derived from the literature.

In this first step the analysis of the SCS initiatives is done on the initiative level rather than the requirement level as it has been done in the three steps of the analysis following this one.

The advantage of this analysis is that with the help of it we get to know about the extent to which each of the actors are being covered by the five SCS initiatives as well as if any of these five SCS initiatives have any actor-specific gaps.

Analysis-2. Security framework of the supply chain

A five group model of the supply chain security measures was introduced by Gutierrez and Hintsa (2006) and this approach for the second step of analysis has been derived from this study conducted by Gutierrez and Hintsa (2006). The initial four groups have been used in exactly the same way as they were defined by Gutierrez and Hintsa (2006) which is as follows:

Human resources management: It guarantees the awareness of the security as well as trust worthiness of all the people who are directly or indirectly associated with the cargo or any other kind of assets of the company.

Business network: This is concerned with the management of the upstream or downstream of the security in the supply chain.

Facility management: The surety of the facility's security where the cargo belonging to the company is kept.

Information management: This is associated with the protection of the information regarding the company such as the data regarding the business as well as exploiting the available information tools in such a way so as to detect if any illegal activities are being carried out.

Risk management: This is associated with the recognition and then the analysis of the risks in the supply chain in order to make efforts to reduce their occurrence to the minimum level possible and to also take measures to handle them if they do occur.

Disaster recovery: To make a strategy for recovering from a disaster in the most cost efficient as very as speedy manner.

With the help of this analysis it was easily understood how, in the five SCS initiatives under discussion here these seven security areas are being covered and if there are any gaps in between them.

Analysis-3: Security phase

Although there isn't much found regarding this step of the analysis in the literature but the CBRA research team finds it very relevant in analyzing or designing the security standards of the supply chain and following is the three-phase scheme that was made by the team in order to carry out this analysis:

1. Prevent: The activities or the security measures whose primary goal is the prevention of crimes from taking place.

2. Detect / react: The activities or the security measures that have the primary goal of helping in finding out about the crime incidences and then helping in finding solutions to them not only in a manner that is fast but also cost efficient.

3. Recover: The activities and the security measures that help the company in getting back to the normal operations.

Mr. Khoen Liem (2009) who is the EC DG Enterprise officer also gave a presentation regarding this recently. 42 It is the security level requirement meaning, "row-level" on which the analysis is carried out. 43 When more than one phase is covered by the requirement then during the analysis all of them are identified. 44 With the help of this analysis it was easily understood how, in the five SCS initiatives under discussion here these seven security areas are being covered and if there are any gaps in between them.

Analysis-4: Constant improvement cycle

The fourth step in the analysis process is also known as the Deming cycle. By carrying out the Planning, Doing, Checking and Acting improvements are achieved in this cycle. The Deming cycle is also of great importance in the literature regarding quality control. Planning, doing, checking and acting play a very important role in making the continuous improvement cycle successful whereas, in case one of these steps is not being carried out properly it means that the process stops or gets affected. Following are the definition for each of the cycle steps:

1. Plan: The designing or revising of the procedures in order to improve the results as well as arranging the methods to measure the results in a proper way.

2. Do: Carry out the plan and observe the performance.

3. Check: Analyzing and evaluating the performance and then forwarding this information to the company.

4. Act: Asses the measurement system and carry out the required improvements.

Security requirement level is what this analysis is carried out upon. With the help of this analysis it was easily understood how, in the five SCS initiatives under discussion here these seven security areas are being covered and if there are any gaps in between them.

Analysis-5: Prevention of the situational crime

This step of the analysis is based on the theories regarding the situational crime prevention. There are four steps that this analysis is made of and these were derived from the crime prevention literature and are as follows:

1. Supply chain (re)design: Business partners, sourcing points, transport modes and routes etc.

2. Extended information protection: Evident information on data system protection and shipments etc.

3. Physical security: Protects the facility or physical attributes of the company by preventing the access to the targets with the help of the alarm systems, security guards, dogs etc.

4. Crime reward decrease: Product design, planning, pin-codes postponement strategies etc.

This analysis is carried out on the security requirement level. With the help of Situational Crime Prevention analysis it was easily understood how, in the five SCS initiatives under discussion here these seven security areas are being covered and if there are any gaps in between them.

Analysis-6: The present European security norms

Existing European Security Norms is the last step in the in-depth SCS security initiative. Five supply chain security-related areas were pre-identified to contain probable direct or indirect links with the SCS security initiative. These five areas were identified with the help of the paper done by the CBRA research team (Ahokas J. 2009)45

Following are those supply chain security-related areas:

1. Physical security: The building of the windows, shutters, glass in the building, doors and other guidelines in order to prevent the crimes from taking place in the building.

2. Access control and alarm systems: These alarm systems as well as the access control systems can be used in order to prevent the intrusions.

3. CCTV systems: CCTV surveillance systems can prove to be very advantageous when used in the security applications. The system requirement for these systems to works in can be learned from the application guidelines. They can be used as evidence as they have the ability to import the images.

4. Security service providers: Mobile as well as static security providence. This should be kept as a code of practice.

5. Security screening: The screening of the employees for the purpose of security, this should also be a code of practice.

With the help of this last step of the analysis this can be clearly understood if there exists a clear or direct link between the five SCS initiatives and the various European security related norms.

Involvement of the supply chain actors in each SCS initiative

First of all in this research an analysis was carried out by the research team in which they observed the supply chain actors who typically do comply or can comply with the five SCS initiatives.

There are two groups in which the initiatives can generally be divided into based on the operator or the supply chain focus. The operator focus is represented by the IRU, TAPA and Port security whereas; supply chain focus is represented by the EU AEO and ISO. It is the aim of ISO 28001to improve the process of the supply chain security regardless of the mode of transport and it is meant to apply the standard to all of the supply chain operators.

At the moment the main thing that the TAPA is concerned with is to provide security for the cargo on the road between the warehouses as, it is the duty of the TATA to ensure the safety and secure deposit of the cargo in the warehouses and to prevent any of the company's cargo from losing.

In all of the EU port areas a security management system has been introduced by the port security directive. The main focus of the port security is on the shipping companies and the port operators.

Security framework of the supply chain

The second thing that the research team did was analyzing the supply chain security aspects that were relevant and were considered in the five SCS initiatives mentioned above.

Given below are some of the descriptive examples of the requirement categorization:

Facility management:

EU Port Directive: There are access requirements however, only when the security levels exceed minimal thresholds do these requirements take place.

ISO: These are the procedures that are there to ensure that there is no unauthorized access to the cargo, shipping or the loading dock areas.

Security phase

The third step taken by the security team was the analysis of security phase of requirements. Given below are the samples that were included in the requirement categorization:

Prevent:

ISO: It is concerned with finding out if the organization has any procedures to evaluate the integrity of employees.

IRU: Try to limit the access that the employees have to the loading areas in fact, try to keep different loading areas, each apart from the other.

Detect/react:

EU AEO: The integrity of the goods should be checked when they are received.

EU AEO: Whenever possible the applicants should try to compare the weight of the outgoing goods.

Recover:

ISO: It deals with the fact that if the company has a proper strategy or plan in case of some sort of crisis.

EU AEO: According to the EU AEO the companies should have proper procedures that are kept in place in case there is some sort of crisis or discrepancies.

Moving forward we have presented the out-come of this in-depth analysis and linked the SCS initiatives to the SCS of the three security phases, e.g. It was noted that almost 50% of the requirements had a direct/react link in the EU AEO.53

Constant improvement cycle

The fourth step that was taken by the research team was to find out if the concept of continuous improvement was taken into account by the five SCS initiatives.

It was found by this in-depth analysis that the five SCS initiative's security requirements were linked to one of the P/D/C/A -steps, e.g. 12% of the requirements had a link to the plan-step in EU Port security directive. 56

Prevention of the situational crime

As this was second-to-last analysis method, based on the situational crime prevention a brief analysis was done by the research team. 57 Following is the logical sequence in which the situational crime prevention has been described:

1. Firstly, take the whole supply chain into consideration such as, the transport modes, warehousing areas etc.

2. Secondly, protect the information on your shipment and warehousing as much as you can.

3. Thirdly, use the physical security in order to prevent the access to the goods or cargo.

4. Fourthly, decrease the value of the crime rewards by decreasing the value of the goods to maximum extent.

Therefore, at this point it is safe to conclude that in the five SCS initiatives discussed in this paper the theories of the opportunities of situational crime prevention have not been exploited a lot although; there is room for a lot more research right now.

Conclusion

The extent of the success of C-TPAT can be estimated from the fact that although the companies join it voluntarily but a lot of companies have made it a requirement to join the C-TPAT in order to do business with them. This partnership will play a great role in decreasing the risks that the shipments face all over the world.

From the way that C-TPAT is progressing right now it is evident that if they maintain their performance level as it is right now they will be to make the establishment of the green lane possible which will not only protect the supply chain of America but also the countries all over the world.