DAVAO CITY ─ A review of supply chain improvement studies to improve S&T based products was recently conducted for the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development’s (PCAARRD) TechnoMart Program in this city.
TechnoMart or TM is a technology transfer modality aimed to create science and technology (S&T)-based enterprises. To provide industry situationers on the TM products, as well as substantiate planned interventions, supply chain studies were made integral to the implementation of the program.
Early this year, PCAARRD supported supply chain studies on seven TM products in nine different regions. The products studied were organic arabica coffee beans, chevon (goat meat), semi-processed peanuts, darag native chicken, ubi powder, dehydrated and vacuum-packed jackfruit, and coco sugar.
Now on its completion, results of the supply chain studies are seen to provide the foundation in improving the interventions under the program.
In the studies, the most common concerns raised in almost all the product industries pertain to the implementation of product grades and standards, certification, regulatory mechanism, and intellectual property (IP) conditions.
TM interventions can equip the clients in applying and complying with certification, as well as in coming up with fair IP arrangements among parties concerned.
In addition, information on major issues obtained in the studies will serve as bases for other specific interventions such as cluster formation, capacity building, production scheduling, market linkage, and pricing strategy. These issues include inefficiencies in production such as low recovery in ubi powder processing; difficulty in sourcing of chevon in Region 3; absence of established distribution system for darag native chicken and chevon in Region 2; and low incentive in processing in the case of jackfruit and ubi.
Opportunities to close the huge supply and demand gap observed in the studies promise bright prospects for the TM products. Opportunities were explored and information in mitigating threats to the industries was accounted during the review.
The studies also established the product requirements of the key customers to serve as guide in improving production and raw material sourcing.
Further, through the supply chain studies, some assumptions used in the existing TM proposals were validated while the others were challenged.
All these results were obtained through the supply chain analysis conducted in a span of only four months — a cost-efficient analytical tool that would help ensure effectiveness of million-peso investments in the development of S&T- based enterprises.