COMPANY OVERVIEW
Oshkosh is a global industrial technology company innovating purpose-built, mission critical equipment for everyday heroes around the world.
With revenue of $8.6 billion in 2021, the import compliance team has extended into managing supply chain compliance, working with global oversight to leave the world a better place.
Values: Human-inspired.
Team-built. Will-powered.
Employees: 15K
Revenue: $8.6 Billion
Import Compliance Team: 7 People
Team-built. Will-powered.
Employees: 15K
Revenue: $8.6 Billion
Import Compliance Team: 7 People
Alec Streeter
Director of Global Trade Compliance
OSHKOSH
OSHKOSH
FRDM gives us that next-level supply chain visibility that we can’t create organically ourselves except through massive manual efforts.
The team’s flexibility and willingness to hear the challenges we face and be tech-forward and creative in ways to address them is really important to us.”
Case Study
Problem
The primary issue facing the compliance team was visibility into the supply chain. While there have been disruptions in the world such as natural disasters or port issues, they were only increasing especially when factoring in COVID and its associated supply chain constraints. When the team tried to link what they had with what they received from tier-one suppliers, they realized that they needed greater visibility to make the data actionable.
To try and enhance the data and gain more visibility, the Oshkosh compliance team had to ask or survey suppliers, asking those suppliers to then survey their own suppliers. This was a herculean task, particularly for an organization of Oshkosh’s scale and global reach.
Additionally, the team always knew that human rights were an issue, initially in North Korea and later in Xinjiang, China. While the core business isn’t in a high-risk industry, they knew that they needed to understand the true state of their supply chain - not just because it was the right thing to do, but also because their shareholders expected this understanding.
The team started their investigation with a manual heatmap of their activities around the world. While they realized that they weren’t directly connected to the highest risk regions or industries, they were committed to growing on the UN maturity scale. But how could they move the needle?
Additionally, the team always knew that human rights were an issue, initially in North Korea and later in Xinjiang, China. While the core business isn’t in a high-risk industry, they knew that they needed to understand the true state of their supply chain - not just because it was the right thing to do, but also because their shareholders expected this understanding.
The team started their investigation with a manual heatmap of their activities around the world. While they realized that they weren’t directly connected to the highest risk regions or industries, they were committed to growing on the UN maturity scale. But how could they move the needle?
The business we’re in is keeping people safe at work. FRDM is helping us do that on the very front end to make sure that we’re not contributing to any human rights abuse in any way, shape, or form.”
Benny De Bruin
Global Trade Compliance Analyst
OSHKOSH
OSHKOSH
Of our four core values as a company, our work with FRDM aligns with two: putting people first and doing the right thing. Putting people first isn’t just about our company, it’s about always leading with humanity. It’s part of our DNA - when we see people in harm, doing the right thing is the automatic next step. Doing nothing goes against who we are.”
Alec Streeter
Solution
When searching for a solution, it was clear that there was a lot of diverse data out there. To enhance their ability to analyze and connect the dots, the compliance team needed someone to fill the gaps and complete the spiderweb. With greater visibility and federated data, they could identify risks in the supply chain from a human rights perspective.
After discovering FRDM through an internal recommendation, the compliance team decided to experiment with using the platform. As a general rule, the team prefers working with startups and smaller companies so that they can essentially work as development partners - providing feedback and beta testing to help the product evolve. The Oshkosh team has observed that smaller organizations are typically more agile than larger companies that might have more resources.
Spend data was extracted from the Oshkosh system and ingested into FRDM. With their FRDM dashboard, the compliance team gained a level of visibility that was previously unavailable, allowing them to build unique paths forward.
Spend data was extracted from the Oshkosh system and ingested into FRDM. With their FRDM dashboard, the compliance team gained a level of visibility that was previously unavailable, allowing them to build unique paths forward.
Results
Scalable Transparency
A massive, global organization, Oshkosh uses suppliers around the world. With FRDM, they can quickly and easily add suppliers by region or product to scale their insights and adapt to changing global dynamics.
Next-level
supply chain visibility
FRDM dashboards make it easy to understand who is doing business with whom. When legislation like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed, the Oshkosh team could analyze connections into Xinjiang and see potential risks in the supply chain.
Standardized and unified supplier evaluation
As Oshkosh builds and upgrades their central source-to-pay software as a vendor-supplier integration tool, they’re able to include FRDM as an assessment for existing or potential suppliers across the business.
Increased stakeholder visibility and action
With increased visibility and understanding of the supply chain, the Oshkosh compliance team can share insights with their stakeholders across the business. Together, they can work across departments to determine the best course of action in the event of discovering potential abuse in the supply chain.
We’re not looking to start a witch hunt and accuse suppliers. Red flags often come up in tier three or four suppliers. Maybe the tier-one suppliers don’t even know there’s a connection a few tiers down. With this information, we can address the issues together.”
Benny De Bruin
We’re a on mission to protect people and planet leveraging buying power and supply chain transparency.
Watch how we do it.
Watch how we do it.
