Over the past year, the company’s European group has acquired multiple companies that now operate as TALIS Group subsidiaries, prompting TALIS to consolidate management of its global trade compliance capabilities. Since the beginning of May, Management Dynamics’ Export On-Demand solution has been running at all German entities in TALIS Group, with additional European entities scheduled to come online in stages over the coming weeks.

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It has long been understood that achieving 100% trade compliance with textile and wearing apparel imports has been challenging for both Customs and the trade community. In a recent presentation, Janet Labuda, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Director of Textile Enforcement, reminded the audience just how daunting that challenge remains…

… Under Ms. Labuda’s direction, CBP has assembled a cross-functional team to review textile and wearing apparel imports from China. Over a relatively short period of time, the team visited 60 companies in Los Angeles, another 60 in Manhattan, and another 61 throughout the rest of the country. The result confirmed CBP’s worst fears.

Interesting Stats:

• Textiles (including wearing apparel) still account for approximately 40% of all duties collected and about 22% of all import entries filed
• More than half of the importers interviewed by CBP did not have the right to make entry

Two additional examples highlighted in Labuda’s presentation, summarized by Trade Lawyers Blog:

In one example, goods worth $33 million were imported by one company, but the person acting as importer was getting paid just 1¢ per garment. In other words, this person did not qualify to act as importer of record, and the value being declared at time of entry was significantly underreported. In other examples, a shipment was originally offered for entry with a value of $200,000. When Customs refused the entry, the corrected entry reflected a value of $1.7 million.

Another entry originally submitted at $250,000 was ultimately revised to $1.5 million.  They had no knowledge about the goods and also had no interest in those goods.

For more info, read on at Trade Lawyers Blog, it is an excellent post!

New Modules for Supplier PO and Origin Management Improve Control Over Execution Processes and Facilitate Advanced Notification Requirements

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ, December 8, 2009 — Management Dynamics, Inc., a leading provider of Global Trade Management (GTM) solutions, today announced the release of Trade Portals, a new product line to help companies extend purchasing, origin logistics, and compliance processes to their trading partners. By collaborating across a shared process with suppliers, forwarders, logistics providers and brokers, companies can reduce cycle time, lower supply chain execution costs, and better support compliance initiatives such as Customs 10+2.

As companies re-engineer their supply chains and shift production overseas, they often lose control over the procurement process, especially with regards to how it should integrate with their import compliance programs. Many importers face challenges when trying to manage a remote supply base. Examples include: coordination and management of confirmed orders, the monitoring of ship windows, coordination with origin logistics providers, and integration of the export transaction details with import entries.

Management Dynamics’ Trade Portals solution is comprised of three, on-demand, enterprise-class modules including Supplier PO Management, Supplier Solicitation Management, and Origin Management. It is designed to allow importers to configure these points of collaboration with key trading partners including suppliers, forwarders and customs brokers.

“With hundreds of suppliers and over 7,500 shipments to manage annually, we needed to empower our suppliers to review purchase orders and create shipments for approval,” John Wainwright, Vice President Customs Compliance, Leggett & Platt. “Management Dynamics’ Trade Portal solution helps us automate the workflow between suppliers and the shipment creation process – from point of purchase order, all the way through pre-customs entry – enabling us to centralize and streamline our global procurement process.”

Management Dynamics’ Trade Portal modules are highly configurable, on-demand solutions that can support multiple process variations with the following key capabilities:

• Purchase Order life cycle management through shipment to invoice
• State-of-the-art dashboard views and workflow tools
• A multi-organization and role-based security model to organize suppliers and logistics providers by country or region and to establish standard operating procedures for each group
• Multi-lingual support with language preference that can be assigned by user to improve supplier adoption
• Flexible integration options including direct XML or EDI connectivity, spreadsheet uploads and web forms for manual data entry
• Document generation engine creates all necessary supporting documentation prior to shipment that can be distributed via email with pre-defined rules
• Integration with Management Dynamics’ Supply Chain Visibility, Trade Import and Trade Agreements solutions

“Top global supply chain operational initiatives today are focused on extending and synchronizing key execution processes with all trading parties,” said Nathan Pieri, SVP Marketing and Product Management for Management Dynamics. “Our new Trade Portal product line targets process gains in supplier collaboration and origin management to deliver key benefits of reducing supply chain execution costs and better supporting new security requirements like Customs 10+2.”

The FDA issued an import alert three weeks ago that essentially banned the import of the pills made in two of Apotex’s plants into the US. It is not clear if the recalled pills were affected by that ban.

The Apotex Inc. recall affects three products and “comes in light of Health Canada’s continuing inspections of Apotex manufacturing facilities in the Greater Toronto Area,” the health agency announced yesterday.

The affected products are apo-meloxicam, used in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis; apo-ranitidine, used for treating excess stomach acid; and apo-amilzide, used for maintenance therapy of patients with liver cirrhosis.

The FDA has a strong reach into Canada’s prescription drug market, and non-compliance with their regulations can lead to serious penalties, such as this import ban, even though the company making the product is not technically subject to FDA regulations.

However, considering their customers are in the US, and all pharmaceuticals must adhere to the FDA’s strict standards, there’s no pill to remedy the pain Apotex will feel from import ban from the FDA.

Companies doing business with Apotex need to maintain compliance with this ban as well or they too will face import penalties.