Integrity and Transparency for Trustworthy Supply Chain
security of their supply chains, benefit the Government’ s strategic planning and improve the overall transparency of supply chains for end consumers and other supply chain participants.
2 CHALLENGES IN DATA AVAILABILITY, INTEGRATION, AND ANALYSIS
Currently, public knowledge of industry supply flows and types is incomplete and fragmented due to a paucity of well-structured data that addresses national-level interests. Today’ s focus on third-party, first-order data( e. g, shipping data, contracts, etc.) is limiting the availability, accuracy, and consistency of these forms of data. For example, in the United States, a common source of supply chain data comes from the Customs and Border Protection agency.
Their data focuses on the international flow of goods through U. S. ports in order to police those flows. While an essential element of national-level strategic understanding, this data is only one piece of the overall supply chain puzzle and is governed by various restrictions on sharing and analysis. It also takes more effort to gather, normalize, clean, and analyze such sensitive data than it does utilizing available first party, second-order data( e. g. shared bills of material( BOMs)).
The current limits on availability, accuracy, consistency, and scope of relevant data constrain the practicality of performing strategic collection, aggregation, and analysis for big picture supply chain understanding. This includes advanced modern capabilities such as artificial intelligence( AI) natural language processing( NLP) models or large language models( LLM). Customs and Border Protection shipping invoices( which only represent international transshipment) provide some insights, but are of limited scope, lack detail, and are constrained by the commercial sensitivity of data that often restricts details of even a company’ s own supply chain.
A key consideration in acquiring appropriate data for analysis is the willingness of product producers to create relevant supply chain data and to share that data with others. Reticence to share supply chain data is typically based on perceptions of trust and integrity. Most prominently there is an uncertain level of trust in how much they can rely on those who receive the data to use it in a beneficial and non-malicious manner( e. g. exposing details of a firm’ s supply chain could be used by competitors to negatively impact business interests) [ 3 ]. This uncertainty is further exacerbated by concerns surrounding integrity of the data shared and of the identity of those who will use it [ 4 ]. This reticence to share directly impacts everyone’ s ability to analyze supply chain resilience at both the tactical and strategic levels.
In most countries industries are disadvantaged when competing with nations that can demand that their companies disclose information on what is required to build their products and who or where it is coming from. Using those insights, countries that present a strong competitive challenge to open economies can take strategic action to ensure that their industries have the goods and materials required to prosper as well as impede or deny such access to global competitors. Mandating insight into the supply chains is counter to the culture of industry independence and freedom from interference in open economies. Recent changes in the global
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