ROC Solid: Return On Compliance White Paper By Bob Bunsey, SPEDE Technologies

Return on compliance (ROC) is not just a play on words to combine the concepts of compliance and return on investment (ROI). Rather, it is a term used to convey the idea that meeting customer compliance mandates should be an incentive to streamline procedures within your operations and derive substantial savings by eliminating waste and errors.

To meet the external compliance and internal ROI objectives, supplier firms must look to incorporating best practices and the associated infrastructure into their internal business processes. When best practices are implemented and a firm has control of its business processes, compliance occurs as a natural consequence. This is especially true for compliance mandates such as the MMOG, which encompass so many core business processes within a supplier's operation.

The MMOG places high value on the accuracy of material identification (MMOG Section 4.8) and accurate receiving/shipping processes (MMOG Section 4.9). It has long been acknowledged by the automotive sector that scanning is a best practice for accuracy of data input. For a supplier to really meet best practices criteria today, scanning should be integrated into each business process within the four walls—ideally, by using the barcoded data that is being printed on the compliance labels. Some platforms integrate labeling and scanning and subsequently scan the labels at critical points in real-time to control internal processes, in addition to updating the supplier's information systems automatically.