About this tool:

This 42 question Diagnostic Tool is brought to you by The National Center for Food Protection and Defense, a Homeland Security Center of Excellence headquartered at the University of Minnesota.
It is administered by The Food Industry Center, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota. It was developed in collaboration with the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, College of Business Administration at Michigan State University.

This tool is based on a three year supply chain benchmarking project funded the National Center for Food Protection and Defense. Three Universities participated in gathering data from various parts of the food supply chain:

   The Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota

   The Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, College of Business Administration at Michigan State University

   H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.

This Diagnostic Tool is an on-line evaluation for use by food firms and their operating units to benchmark their use of business and communication practices that will increase the resistance to and recovery from intentional (terrorist) contamination of food products.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Purpose: 

The primary purpose of this Diagnostic Tool is to provide food companies with a private, free, easy, and comprehensive method of assessing their preparedness for a potential terrorist attack on food or food company assets.

This tool is designed for food companies, big and small, to compare their business continuity capacity and resiliency to a potential deliberate attack relative to other companies in their part of the food supply chain:

  • Retail Food Stores
  • Foodservice retail places
  • Retail food wholesalers/distributors
  • Foodservice wholesalers/distributors
  • Manufacturers.

This tool will help to keep the U.S. food supply safer and protect the integrity of the food industry.

This tool is:

  • Based on a survey of food companies in various segments of the supply chain: manufacturers, wholesalers/distributors, retail food companies and foodservice establishments (restaurants).
  • Allows one or more business units to participate; the average score for all business units in the company will be used for the company’s GAP analysis.
  • Allows headquarters, at their discretion, to compare food defense practices across individual business units.
  • Allows a business unit or branch to participate individually and see a GAP analysis for just their unit.
  • Designed to be updated as new/additional companies use it. This keeps the benchmark numbers current.
  • Designed to also reinforce food safety and quality controls as participants view the questions and think about food defense  practices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How the Diagnostic Tool Works:

The Diagnostic tool you are about to complete will allow your company to benchmark its food defense practices against the industry average and industry leader.  By answering a series of 42 questions, the following four areas of company operations will be evaluated.

 

  1. Practices – measuring the companies’ security and food defense performance by evaluating their use of physical security, audits/metrics, strategy/security protocols;
  2. People – evaluating the companies’ practices in communications with the members of the supply chainand  training of both employees and supply chain partners;
  3. Supply Chain Partners – assessing the companies’ supply chain collaboration and verification practices;
  4. Food Products – determining the companies’ abilities to track and monitor the flow of their food products.

 

Comparing your individual score or your company’s score (averaged across more than one business unit) to the Industry Average and Industry Leader will allow you to determine the areas of your food defense weaknesses and strengths. The GAP analysis is the difference between your score and the industry’s best performer. 

The Industry Leader is the company who reported the highest score among the companies in their part of the food supply chain. There are 5 parts of the supply chain for you to choose from:
1. Retail Food company
2. Foodservice (retail) company
3.  Retail food wholesaler/distributor
4.  Foodservice wholesaler/distributon
5.  Food manufacturer/processor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multi-unit companies:

If you are the company headquarters and want several business units to complete the questionnaire, you need to specify the number of additional PIN numbers you would like issued to your company - including headquarters. This must be done when headquarters starts the survey process. After you have selected the number of PINs you will need for your company, you will not be able to add more PINs at a later time unless you re-enter the survey as a headquarters asking for a new set of pins. These PINs will not be related to your original PINs and will have their own set of summary results.


You are responsible for deciding which unit gets which PIN number and for distributing the PINs and Passwords to your business units. This process enables the final Diagnostic tool results from each unit to be viewed by headquarters and calculates an average across all business units giving a company-wide GAP analysis.

If you want to analyize sections of your business individually (such as by geographic location, store name, or manufacturing type (Refrigerated vs Dry, Dairy vs Bakery) you must decide these areas first and then create groups of pins for each section of your business you want to analyze seperately (including a PIN for headquarters even if you don't use it, PIN XXXX00 should always be assigned to headquarters).

Example:  a diversified manufacturer, one with three refrigerated production facilities, four dry facilities must register two times; once for refrigerated, once for dry if they want to look at their refrigerated facilities as a group separately from the dry facilities.  The benchmark already compares companies based on “sector,” manufacturing, retail, wholesaling and foodservice.

Example:  a retail company with 22 stores and 2 manufacturing facilities only needs to register once to receive a benchmark report for their stores, compared to other stores, and their manufacturing facilities compared with other manufacturing facilities.  However, when asked to identify “their company type,” the manufacturing facilities need to indicate that they are manufacturers even-though they are part of a “retail” company.

 

Business units within a company will not be able to view each other’s responses unless company headquarters decides to share them in the end. Each party filling out the questionnaire will be assigned his/her own password. (Please rember your password, the system administrator cannot retrieve lost passwords.) This will enable him/her to go back and view the results of the survey at any time within a year of the PIN's generation.

Each business unit who completes the survey will receive a GAP analysis based on their answers. Individual divisions or business units of a larger company will contribute to the overall company average score as well.   As units issued a PIN respond, a rolling average for the company will be calculated and a company GAP analysis will be generated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confidentiality:

Your company and/or its units will not be identified to any researcher or computer technician. The computer program will save your individual responses (anonymously) so that the Industry Average and Industry Leader numbers on the Diagnostic Results can be updated periodically. This will make the Diagnostic Tool useful over a longer period of time; you will receive a GAP analysis against current industry practices. It will also allow researchers to track trends in food defense practices from various parts of the food supply chain.

Participation in this study is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will not affect your current or future relations with the University of Minnesota or the research centers conducting this study. If you decide to participate, you are free to not answer any question or withdraw at any time with out affecting those relationships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact us:

The researchers and staff tracking and monitoring this Diagnostic Tool are J.D. Kinsey, K. Ghosh, J. Seltzer and L. Jore.  If you have questions, you are encouraged to contact:

L. Jore at 612-625-7019

K. Ghosh at 612-625-6232

or e-mail us at tfic@umn.edu

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this study and would like to talk to someone other than the researcher(s), you are encouraged to contact the

Research Subjects’ Advocate Line

D528 Mayo, 420 Delaware St. Southeast

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

(612) 625-1650

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practices – measuring the companies’ security and food defense performance by evaluating their use of physical security, audits/metrics, strategy/security protocols

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People – evaluating the companies’ practices in communications with the members of the supply chainand  training of both employees and supply chain partners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supply Chain Partners – assessing the companies’ supply chain collaboration and verification practices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food Products – determining the companies’ abilities to track and monitor the flow of their food products