Navigating supply chain complexity: Erve's journey to transparency with tex.tracer
Erve is dedicated to growth while maintaining a commitment to quality and being mindful of its environmental & social responsibilities.
In 2022, Erve partnered with tex.tracer to centralise its supply chain data on one platform, meeting the evolving requirements of customers and the laws and regulations focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards.
"tex.tracer has helped us to integrate different platforms (...) into one central place. We now know when all the order information is complete, which was more difficult beforehand"
Kyra Claeys, Compliance and quality manager at Erve
The big challenge
With an expanding list of supply chain partners, Erve faced challenges in tracking and managing its supply chain efficiently. Prior to using tex.tracer, partner management involved using large Excel sheets, requiring extensive manual efforts to share, verify, and update data from various sources.
To ensure a smooth onboarding process for supply chain partners on the tex.tracer platform, the process was rolled out in two phases.
In phase one, all main partners with active orders (12 Agents and 44 main partners) were onboarded over a 6- month period.
In phase two, the main partners mapped out their supply chain network and invited their supply chain partners (Tier 2-4) to confirm their company details and submit evidence proving that they are part of the product supply chain. 32% of these supply chain partners have been onboarded as active users on the platform in the first 6 months after invitation* .
*The number of partners onboarded was accurate at the date of writing (November 2023). Partner onboarding is an ongoing activity, with new partners being added every week.
Compliance
tex.tracer enabled Erve to map its supply chain, establishing a clear link between product orders and supply chain partners.
Furthermore, all compliance documents, such as the Code of Conduct and Restricted Substances Lists, can be digitally signed. Environmental certificates and social audit reports are collected and can be viewed in a comprehensive overview on the platform.
Automating Erve's transparency workflow
tex.tracer facilitated the integration of multiple tools (Delogue, Teams, and Excel) into one central platform.
Orders flow directly into tex.tracer through an API connection between Delogue and tex.tracer, minimising the time spent by Erve on uploading orders and reducing errors. By consolidating all order, partner, and compliance data in tex.tracer, Erve is gradually phasing out the use of MS Teams and Excel.
"tex.tracer is saving us a lot of time by helping us to motivate our suppliers to update their supply chain on the platform (...) now all certificates are centralised"
Kyra Claeys, Compliance and quality manager at Erve
Next steps
Next to mapping out the rest of its supply chain network and onboarding its partners, further collaboration includes calculating Erve’s product-level footprint (Scope 3). Through the Footprint data collection module on the tex.tracer platform, Erve can collect footprint data directly from its partners in a scalable and automated process. This enables Erve to analyse the product footprint data, make informed decisions to reduce product footprint, and build a resilient supply chain.
The partnership between Erve and tex.tracer provides Erve with a better understanding of its supply chain. Having one central place for all order, partner, and compliance data, combined with integrations and automated processes, saves the Erve team considerable time.
Feel free to reach out to Erve with any inquiries. Send them an e-mail: info@erve.com
