Product compliance regulations get stricter, sustainability performance undergoes more scrutiny, and the competition gets tougher.
In this constantly evolving landscape, there’s one constant: trust. To stay resilient in the face of external pressures, the relationship between suppliers and customers needs to be the top priority, built on trust and transparency.
For over 15 years, Assent has been working alongside thousands of manufacturers and suppliers. We’ve seen firsthand how important that relationship is. When it’s easy to share information down the supply chain, suppliers are empowered to be more responsive. And when data quality is higher, those relationships grow stronger because suppliers can be active partners in compliance.
A better approach to supply chain management
That was the inspiration behind Assent’s latest innovation, the Assent Sustainability Platform — a new solution available now to suppliers at no cost to join. Get the details at http://www.assent.com/asp/.
Unlike traditional supply chain management systems that only focus on data collection, the Assent Sustainability Platform puts suppliers on equal footing by prioritizing their experience as well. Our new platform makes it easier and faster to share compliance data with multiple customers at once, eliminating the burden of responding to individual customer requests one by one. Through Assent’s tight relationships with global suppliers, we know just how much you care about being good partners to your customers — and how much your reputation depends on it.
Using the Assent Sustainability Platform, suppliers can proactively share declarations for key regulations like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation; and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, plus others, and securely share parts data with others in their network connections.
This is good news for more than just suppliers. It’s useful to the entire manufacturing ecosystem. Customers can access higher-quality parts data faster. By removing the barriers between customers and suppliers, manufacturers can assess compliance in real-time and quickly bring new products to market.
Foster long-lasting relationships with suppliers
Compliance management has no end point. Whenever a regulation changes, a part gets modified, or manufacturers redesign a product, timely compliance data is needed. Likewise, a good relationship between a customer and supplier is not a one-and-done deal.
The regulatory space is always growing and changing, so companies must build resilient supply chains and strong relationships instead of reactively chasing after every new data demand. The Assent Sustainability Platform was designed to support these long-lasting partnerships and reflect the values both parties need to be sustainable and profitable:
- Secure data exchanges for suppliers and customers
- Proactive declaration sharing and communication
- One central, organized place for managing data
- Automated processes to remove manual labor and wait times
It takes an army to develop a whole new approach to supply chain data management, and Catherine Cormier and Echo Bell are the leaders overseeing this epic undertaking. As Assent’s Vice President of Product Management, Echo’s in charge of asking “what’s next?” and working with the company’s team of regulatory experts to stay agile as requirements evolve. The technology space is changing as fast as the regulatory one, and Echo ensures Assent is using data, advanced toolsets, and artificial intelligence (AI) to stay on the cutting edge.
What makes creating a platform for manufacturers challenging?
Echo Bell: “Manufacturers wear many hats. At one moment, they need to collect data from their suppliers to ensure compliance and meet regulatory demands, and the next they’re using that information to support their own customer requests. The key is understanding that all supply chain data is deeply interconnected. When a customer asks for information, a supplier can’t respond until they’ve engaged their own suppliers. It’s a series of relationships.
“We knew we couldn’t create a solution that treated data-sharing like a transactional, one-way flow. That’s why a network approach is the only way to really facilitate bidirectional data-sharing upstream and downstream.
“Assent has decades of experience working directly with suppliers and their customers to understand what their business needs are. Suppliers want strong relationships that allow them to be high-value, preferred partners for the long-term. So we developed a platform with those relationships at its core.”
What does a network approach look like?
Echo Bell: “For years, Assent has been creating a vast network of supply chain data. Think of it like a map of the manufacturing ecosystem. With hundreds of thousands of connections, it’s a database of suppliers, as well as products, parts data, and more. It’s the fastest-growing network of supply chain data, and it’s expanding every day.
“We call it the Assent Sustainability Network. It replaces siloed and fragmented approaches, like emails and spreadsheets, to drive better connections between the supply chain partners that use that data when buying and selling products.
“The Assent Sustainability Platform is a new way of accessing and managing data in the network. It gives suppliers a single source of truth for communicating with all their customers, and an easier way of managing their own compliance data.”
How is the Assent Sustainability Platform designed for future requirements?
Echo Bell: “Assent’s philosophy for compliance is to be proactive. With the Assent Sustainability Platform, suppliers can proactively upload declarations for common regulations — like REACH, RoHS, Proposition 65, PFAS, and TSCA — before customers even ask for them, eliminating the need to send a data request.
“Our regulatory experts work with my team to align the solution with new data requirements like the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and changing rules around per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).”
Is the platform just for suppliers?
Echo Bell: “Right now, the Assent Sustainability Platform is for any manufacturer looking to streamline product compliance and sustainability data sharing for their Assent customers. Over time, however, this will expand far beyond suppliers. In reality, the line between supplier and customer is blurred. Most companies are both. Nearly every organization needs to collect information from its suppliers, and also share data with someone else.
“When we talk about designing for the supplier experience, we mean making it easy to share that data downstream, as that’s where manufacturers can reclaim the most time and productivity back. Assent also provides support in multiple languages, including education and training, to make things as simple for suppliers as possible. In the end, it benefits both customers and suppliers.”
What role do security and privacy play in the Assent Sustainability Network?
Echo Bell: “We’re always balancing confidentiality with the need for transparency. We invest in sophisticated controls, robust infrastructure, and comprehensive policies that ensure the integrity of our database and the data entrusted to us by our clients and partners. When we work with suppliers, they make it very clear that they need control over who can see what data, and how much transparency is appropriate for their business. For example, suppliers have the option to share their responses with all their customers (reducing future repetitive requests) or just a few.”
Can suppliers start using the Assent Sustainability Platform?
Echo Bell: “Yes. This March, we launched the platform and are inviting all suppliers to access the new experience and be part of the network. There’s no cost for suppliers to join.
“There are thousands of manufacturers there already, and by joining, suppliers can see how many of their own customers are using it. We believe that being on the platform provides a competitive advantage and showcases a proactive approach to compliance management. Suppliers who join get a streamlined, simple place to manage their compliance data, and it lets them direct customer requests to a single source of truth.
“Suppliers can learn more about the Assent Sustainability Platform and how to join it at http://www.assent.com/asp/.”
By Catherine Cormier, Chief Product Officer, Assent, and Echo Bell, Vice President of Product Management, Assent
