MetricStream Helps Organizations Effectively Comply with Conflict Minerals Reporting Requirements
MetricStream Conflict Minerals Solution offers a full range of capabilities to conduct reasonable country of origin inquiries, create Form SD, and manage and strengthen due diligence activities
PALO ALTO, Calif. - With the May 2014 deadline for the first conflict minerals disclosure approaching, MetricStream is helping companies proactively manage the impact of the new law on their organization by ensuring compliance in a systematic, collaborative, and efficient manner. The MetricStream Conflict Minerals Solution facilitates a two-step approach to compliance; first, it streamlines supplier information management, surveys, self-assessments, and "country of origin" inquiries to determine if additional due diligence is applicable to a company. If it is, the solution enables the full range of due diligence activities, including audits, corrective and preventative action, and conflict minerals reporting.
In 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which seeks to encourage the responsible sourcing of minerals/metals by mandating that publicly traded companies disclose their use of conflict minerals including Tin, Tantalum, Tungsten, and Gold – collectively referred to as 3TG, which have originated from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or its adjoining countries (covered countries), which are tied to armed conflicts and human rights violations.
Companies that use any of the designated materials in their products, and have some degree of actual influence over the manufacturing of these products, are required to conduct a reasonable "country of origin" inquiry and file Form SD. If companies are found to be using conflict minerals in some capacity, they must implement certain due diligence measures, while also filing a conflict minerals report.
The MetricStream Conflict Minerals Solution helps companies approach the new law in a structured and streamlined way. It automatically imports and centralizes data, and provides complete visibility into all relevant information on suppliers, sub-suppliers, products, smelters, and conflict minerals. It also simplifies supplier survey management and self-assessments with the help of embedded industry standard templates. The MetricStream solution routes all identified issues through a systematic process of corrective and preventive action, enabling collaboration and communication with suppliers.
If a company is found to be "DRC conflict-free," the MetricStream solution provides a pre-populated library of reports and dashboards to enable creation of Form SD. On the other hand, if a company is found not to be "DRC conflict-free", the MetricStream solution facilitates the required due diligence processes for suppliers, smelters, and the chain of custody of conflict minerals, in conformance with frameworks supported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Using the solution, companies can enhance due diligence risk assessments, create and manage relevant controls, plan and conduct audits online and offline, remediate issues in close collaboration with suppliers, and generate the required conflict minerals reports. Real-time dashboards provide complete transparency into these processes, enabling companies to proactively identify and address areas of concern.
"We are witnessing a rapidly increasing demand for MetricStream's Conflict Minerals Solution from a range of industries, including electronics, high-tech, appliances, consumer products goods, retail, manufacturing, automotive, and jewelry industries" said Keri Dawson, Vice President of ComplianceOnline Advisory Services at MetricStream. "MetricStream has built a strong reputation as a market leader in supplier governance solutions – of which the conflict minerals solution is a natural extension. Further, the underlying platform can be extended beyond conflict minerals reporting to address other areas of supplier governance such as supplier risk management, supplier performance, and compliance. This integrated and holistic approach to conflict minerals reporting is helping companies reap enormous benefits."
About MetricStream
MetricStream is a market leader in Enterprise-wide Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and Quality Management Solutions for global corporations. MetricStream solutions are used by leading corporations such as UBS, P&G, Constellation Energy, Pfizer, Philips, BAE Systems, Twitter, SanDisk, Cummins and Sonic Automotive in diverse industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Energy and Utilities, Food, Retail, CPG, Government, Hi-tech and Manufacturing to manage their risk management programs, quality processes, regulatory and industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance initiatives, as well as several million compliance professionals worldwide via the www.ComplianceOnline.com portal. MetricStream is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com.
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Mr. Vinay Bapna
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