A Supply Chain Matters Friday Fret- Is Any Product Immune to Quality Problems?

If you have been living somewhere on another planet, you may have not noticed that there has been an alarming increase in erosion of quality control processes leading to all sorts of product recalls.  If you need any evidence, you are welcomed to search Supply Chain Matters under the category of supply chain risk management.  Few categories of products have been exempt and the most sensitive, including pharmaceutical drugs and food have experienced breakdowns in quality.  The latest of these has been a compounding series of incidents related to manufacturing and supplier-related quality breakdowns involving the McNeill Consumer Healthcare Products division of Johnson & Johnson (J&J), manufacturers of brands such as Tylenol, Motrin and other products.  Six product recalls of medicines have been issued since September, and the brand suffers from lack of  trust  among consumers. The latest development to this saga is that J&J and the FDA continue to perform manufacturing quality audits across J&J’s supply chain, and now problems have been discovered at a third manufacturing plant located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  J&J has further indicated that its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant, the prime manufacturing facility for Tylenol products may well remain closed for the remainder of this year, possibly longer.

The latest incident to hit this week’s news wires involves chicken nuggets.  Yes, it’s chicken nuggets.  Purdue Farms Inc., known best for those classic and entertaining Frank Purdue commercials that stressed superior quality, has now joined the public product recall club.  More than 9000 pounds of cooked frozen chicken nuggets, sold at Wal-Mart under the ‘Great Value’ brand, are being recalled because they may contain foreign plastic materials caused by a breakdown in a processing process. The company stresses that no sicknesses have been reported and this voluntary recall is being conducted for precautionary reasons.  If you need more specific information, here is the link to the USDA press release.

Is nothing immune to quality breakdown anymore?  Now chicken nuggets have been impacted, our chicken nuggets!

From chicken nuggets to antacids to our OTC drugs- every step of this reverse consumption chain has been impacted in the last 24 months.  Which symptom or which contamination came first?  Is there nothing sacred?

Are there common and related themes to all of these incidents across multiple industries?  Absolutely! My view is that multiple years of cost reduction across multiple supply chain related processes have come home to roost.  But, that will be the topic of a forthcoming posting. Today is a day for fretting.

Bob Ferrari

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