Taking on the Clean-Up
Challenge
FM Global, a Boston-based com-
mercial industrial insurance company,
has a keen interest in keeping its nano-
technology clients on the growth track.
“Our whole goal is to protect the value
of our clients,” he explains. “Nanotech-
nology represents one of those areas
where there is a tremendous opportu-
nity to innovate, but it also comes with
some risk.”
To protect his clients from the un-
certainty surrounding that risk, Gritzo
and his team have taken an unusual step
to address at least part of the problem
themselves. “Rather than going down a
traditional remediation path, we started
looking at ways we could leapfrog that
fog of uncertainty and come up with
some ways that would help clients in
case of an accidental release,” he ex-
plains.
To do this, he teamed up with sci-
specifically designed to resist. His early results are impressive, finding two “common” chemicals that can remove over 95% of the contami- nation. “Nanoparticles want to get at- tracted to the surface of objects after a spill, but with specific solutions we found the nanoparticles also want to get dissolved in the liquid. That’s the part
that really helps cut the contamination,”
Vaziri says.
The results of the Northeastern University
study show that the SDBS and SDS solvents
provide the maximum remediation potential.
entists at Northeastern University to
develop a simple method to clean up
a nanoparticle spill that would allow
companies to return to business as
quickly as possible.
Led by Northeastern Professor Ash-kan Vaziri, the research team constructed
a unique quantifiable measure for particle release and developed solutions to
break down and absorb the contamination—two things most nanoparticles are
SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS
Failure to Vet Your Supply Chain
Partners Is a Risky Business
Risk management involves determining how suitable a company
will be as a supply chain partner, and what to do if they should fail.
Q BY DAVE BLANCHARD
When it comes to risk manage- ment, the supply chain cash
cycle begins with a sale, i.e., when
the customer signs a purchase order,
explains Christopher Smith, vice
president for finance and administra-
tion with SAIC, a provider of sci-
entific, engineering, and technology
applications. Once that happens, it’s
important to understand what could
happen if the terms of that PO are not
met. The biggest risk with a customer
is they’ll fail to pay you, while the
biggest risk with a supplier is they’ll
fail to deliver on what they promised.
If your customer doesn’t pay you,
what impact will that have on your
operations? Some of the implica-
tions, according to Smith, include:
missed revenue and net income fore-
casts, lower operating cash on hand
(and fewer opportunities to reinvest
in your core business), loss of costs
already expended in fulfilling a cus-
tomer order, and the impact to the
balance sheet (fewer tangible assets).
“It takes 5X new revenue to make up
for one defaulted payment,” Smith
notes.
