Certificate of Analysis (COA)

Minimizing nonconformances of received materials and finished goods is a challenge all manufacturers face. Two documents have a role in controlling nonconformances: The Certificate of Compliance and the Certificate of Analysis. A Certificate of Compliance (or Conformance) is a document your supplier provides which promises that what they sent conforms to the standards set (by […]

Many of us do our shopping online, where we often first “meet” a product by reading a description and seeing a picture, rather than seeing it on a shelf in a store. Because of that, it can be eye-opening to see that companies are including factors other than the physical quality of their product, and […]

Edward Deming has a number of famous quotes about data (like the one above). Another famous Deming quote is; In God We Trust: All Others Bring Data In the past, supply chain trust was driven by personal relationships and accountability based on those relationships. With a global supply chain, a new kind of supply chain trust must […]

USING DATA TO ESTABLISH TRUST Revelations about fraud in Kobe Steel production facilities continue to expand the awareness of just how many large customers of Kobe Steel, the third-largest manufacturer of steel in Japan, are affected. The well-deserved finger-pointing is not going to let up any time soon. About finger-pointing, however, there’s an old trope: […]

My wife recently sent me to the grocery store to buy cream cheese. She said to me “Buy Brand X because they have a higher supplier and process Ppk and Cpk. Brand X always works in this cheesecake recipe.” She didn’t utter those words explicitly, but, that was what she was implying in her statement about […]

Summer is the Festival of Real Estate with families and individuals buying and selling homes at a feverish pace. The mantra on which all people agree is “location, location, location.” It’s all about geography, be it regional or at the neighborhood-level. No matter what neighborhood we choose, or where we are on life’s journey, we […]

  Truth be told, I watch a lot of movies and am a pretty big fan of Brad Pitt. When I was watching Moneyball, there was a scene that resonated with me in my new role with EMNS, promoting GSQA. The scene is depicted in the image above. When looking for new players for the […]

EMNS, Inc. was featured for their integration of the CGF ConnectTalk open API with the leading supply chain quality assurance management system, GSQA®. March 28, 2017: The parent of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) who services the huge FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) Industry. The CGF has defined the […]

European Agricultural Chemicals division gets help to ensure that every ingredient will blend perfectly. EMNS, Inc., Downers Grove, IL, May 12, 2015, announces that the first plant of the European Agricultural Chemicals division of a major global chemical company is validating supplier Certificates of Analysis online before shipment of purchased materials. This functionality is critical […]

Materials vary and can pose performance issues, quality challenges and even product safety risks, so managing the awareness of material variability is a key responsibility for Quality, Engineering and Procurement teams. Downers Grove, IL (PRWEB) December 15, 2014 — EMNS, Inc., the supply chain quality management service GSQA® now has a unique workflow focused on […]

EMNS, Inc. announces Handgards® first full year of successful GSQA® use to manage suppliers and ensure quality around the world. Downers Grove, IL (PRWEB) September 09, 2014 — For decades, economists and management gurus have been preaching the gospel of globalization for American companies in order to remain competitive and take advantage of growth, and […]

An organic baby food company selects GSQA® to meet growing demand with better management of co-manufacturers and suppliers. Downers Grove, IL (PRWEB) May 20, 2015 — Mothers want the best for their babies, and for increasing numbers in recent years that means natural and organic products that promise fewer mystery ingredients and a reduced risk […]

Two leading tire producers expand GSQA® usage, enhancing their management of supplier material performance and specification compliance, resulting in more consistent and improved global quality assurance. EMNS, Inc. announces GSQA® expansion in the tire industry. As automobile use has matured, mileage-per-year has steadily climbed. As more tires are purchased to keep pace, owners give more […]

The past few years have seen both breakdowns and an evolution in the management of supply chain quality. An important aspect of the evolution is the demand by consumers to be informed about more than simply the availability of any specific product. In a way, consumers are transferring their existing approach to services they use […]

In the past few years, the workload of staying in compliance with government regulations has increased several fold. It is not the “fault” of any one government or country, but a general, worldwide trend. It’s has been driven by the increased reach of complex, multi-tier supplier networks and inadequate QA management tools, as well as […]

As you approach the end of 2016, it’s a good time to review your company’s approach to supplier quality assurance and supplier scorecards. The review, to be comprehensive, should begin by asking what the very basis of the approach will be. Will it be based on QA performance data, or will be it be based […]

Imagine someone coming back from a long business trip and turning in an expense report consisting of one piece of paper with a dollar amount on it. Imagine also that the accuracy of the number was important enough to decide whether you and other executives go to prison. This may seem extreme, but this analogy […]

You’ve heard the expression, “it’s like herding cats.” We intuitively know what it means. For our supply management context, let’s consider a symphony performance where we must find a way to get people seated and quieted before the performance starts. It was part of the agreement when their tickets were purchased. Or, we might also […]

When a cake comes out of the oven, with its wonderful aroma filling your house, you can’t wait to taste it. Tasting is also testing it – testing the final product. That includes not only the taste but the texture, how dry or moist it is, the overall “mouth feel” as professionals call it. Everything […]

Quality assurance professionals know their jobs are to make sure materials and products stay within specifications. As a corollary, this includes the ability to respond effectively when violations occur, requiring the skills, experience, and technology to quickly distinguish natural variability from an imminent threat. Ultimately, their mission is prevention – keeping a process from going […]

The modest workhorses, Certificates of Analysis (and their cousins, Certificates of Conformance, and Country of Origin Certificates) that, to some, seem to be nothing more than necessary evils, are looking like Arabian racehorses in recent times. The enormous package of new laws and regulations, such as the Food Safety Modernization Act signed into law in […]

Recent years have brought a spate of breakdowns and recalls in various industries, including some surprising sources of malfeasance in well–regarded companies such as Volkswagen in Germany. At the same time, in response to this, regulations and laws are being tightened, with a rising number of regulatory documents required for a wide range of industries. […]

In the field of medicine, we can find thousands of case in which people succumbed to diseases because they weren’t diagnosed in time to save them. We may assume that diseases and conditions announce themselves through pain or other explicit physical symptoms, but that’s not so. There are some that may show up on the […]

Fraud, counterfeiting and the circulation of contaminated materials most likely arrived the moment humans first began trading and bartering, buying and selling. To quickly define our terms, let’s agree that: Fraud is wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in a financial or personal gain, whether by words or by concealment of what should have […]

It’s reasonable to think that, if you have a good supplier and you trust that supplier, your future together in the quality dimension is secure. It is even more reasonable if the materials with which your product is made are not too complex, in either combinations or characteristics. However, let’s look at some scenarios that […]

The “Eye-Test” Versus Analytics Let’s say you are out for a walk with a farmer, and you stand with her at the edge of a field, looking out at a herd of cows. You see a brown cow with white spots. She sees that the cow is pregnant and that she is feeling stronger, after […]

Supply Chain Quality Approaches The seasons bring with them our sensitivity to weather conditions, and especially to how hot or cold it is, inside or out. We measure those conditions, and we try to regulate them so that we can stay within a safe and comfortable range. In many ways, the processes we use to […]

Lessons of the Season It’s hard to miss the fact that the football season in America has roared onto the scene, more popular than ever. The popularity is reflected by an increasing number of zeros behind the dollar signs in team valuations. According to an article in Forbes magazine * “The average NFL team is […]

GSQA® makes life easier for suppliers by offering many paths for submitting their COA data. Broad conformance to a mandatory “COA with each shipment” policy depends on providing methods for data entry that match suppliers’ capabilities. From “mom & pop” operations to mega-suppliers their willingness to participate does depend on the range of input methods. […]