One day, I would like to see a post that explains the different levels of the supply chain. This is also why I’m a fan of “dashboards”.
You have miners, you have smelters, and you have suppliers that get their materials from those and in the end create the things that make the phone. Would it be possible to publish this data? Or would this harm the OEM/ODM/suppliers relationship? This is something I do not understand … How much freedom do you have to choose your own suppliers to begin with?
I always thought it would/could work like this: You publish a list of suppliers (based on the Bill of Materials for the phone) and link those suppliers to the certificated smelters they use, so you can group the different suppliers with different smelters they use. These “source mines” for certified smelters can get audited to see how good they really work and if the land ownership and and the working conditions for the miners at the sites are as described or can accept minerals from new projects.
I’m sure it is not that easy, but I would like to know more about how the OEM/ODM process makes this easier or more difficult. So far, not a lot has been posted about this aspect – How much freedom does one have in the process (choosing the right supply companies) and how much depends on the OEM/ODM?