Effective supply chain management is important to gain a competitive advantage through achieving operating efficiencies, meeting stakeholder expectations, innovation, and compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.

Our supplier base is diverse to reflect the operations of our various businesses, which are spread around the globe. Responsibility for vetting and managing suppliers is therefore devolved to local management but must meet the Group’s ethical standards.

We know that our customers demand the highest standards from us, including how we manage our own suppliers. Our supply chain management policy can be found here. We carry out regular inspections at our supplier sites and use the SA 8000 Social Accountability Standard to audit our key suppliers against specific criteria. Since 2018, we have incorporated anti-slavery and conflict minerals sections into the SA 8000 Asia Pacific supplier audit process. We comply fully with the modern slavery laws of the UK, France and United States, and all relevant employees have the opportunity to complete a modern slavery online training module to ensure full understanding of our obligations and liabilities.

The SA 8000 standard addresses various aspects of quality management and provides guidance and tools for companies to ensure that their products and services consistently meet customer requirements, and that quality is continuously improved. Recently updated, the new version of the standard requires that key quality management principles are embedded in the organisation. All key Spectris global manufacturing operations are certified to ISO 9001. We are very proud that we can reassure our customers of the high quality of all our products. Further details as to how we manage our suppliers and partners can be found within the 2022 Annual Report.