Topro Industri AS is a Norwegian developer and manufacturer of assistive devices - mainly walking aids. Topro has an exciting history of over 50 years. It started as a rehabilitation company with municipal owners. It was sold about 1.5 years ago, and has commercial owners today.
Topro has its head office and production facility in Gjøvik, and produces around 100,000 rollators annually, mainly for export abroad.
- What is Topro's vision; what difference would you like to make?
"We say that we sell security and freedom to continue moving as you get older. But it's not that easy to sell, because no one wants a walker in the first place."
"We will produce here in Gjøvik. We think it's much better to produce walkers in Norway than in China. It's simply more environmentally friendly because we use aluminum from Norway, which is produced using hydropower, while China uses coal-fired power plants. But we are still dependent on buying something from China. And when you have suppliers in that type of country, in Asia, there are also cultural differences, corruption, child labor, etc."
- You have gone through the process of mapping your supply chain, now for the third time. What have you gained from this?
"We feel a certain confidence that we have control over the supply chain, as we conduct it annually and have a good routine for it. And good help from Factlines when we go through the results. If we find anything, we contact the supplier. When we bring in new suppliers, typically from Asia, we actively use Factlines to qualify new suppliers and documentation. It's very OK to use an extra survey as part of qualification outside the annual survey."
- What can this type of mapping do that other measures (e.g. signing CoC, audits, etc.) cannot?
"It proves that Topro takes this seriously. Especially in China. The contract they sign may not mean much to them, but when we run that survey every year, we show that we are focused on it. It's not a contract that they've forgotten, but it's a living document, and that helps."
Reputation - the consequences of doing nothing. And there is legislation to deal with. "We are obliged to do this, and have control over this."
- What are the challenges of mapping?
"It goes quite smoothly, more challenging not to get answers. The quality and value of the answers can be a challenge. How truthful are the answers? We can't check that 100 percent, but Factlines has cultural knowledge, like yes-singing in China. It's a desktop exercise, but it's a good tool and I get documentation that I can use, for example for NAV. When we got the last tender, NAV had follow-up questions that I could answer based on that documentation."
Why did you choose to use Factlines?
Due to limited internal resources and expertise. NAV demanded it, and we have to be able to document it. This has been reinforced, and then they came with follow-up questions, so things got tighter. There will be more questions and focus on this.
"A larger company might have their own people and expertise in-house, but we don't have the capacity. It's really nice to be able to buy that expertise."
- Did you get what you wanted and thought you would get out of such a supplier survey?
"Yes, I definitely think so. It's a bigger challenge when you have to take it a step further, it falls on our capacity. In a hectic workday, it's not easy to prioritize."
- If you were to give three pieces of advice to others who are in the same situation as you, or were starting to follow up with their suppliers, what would they be?
- Everyone must have a relationship with this internally in the company, and initiate a process internally. Look at the Code of Conduct. At management level and downwards to get a relationship with it.
- If you have little expertise in-house, seek expertise.
- Putting it into practice, actually doing it. Not just theory, but you have to implement it in contracts and in the dialog with suppliers.
