Automation Workflow for Conflict Mineral Reporting and Supply Chain Due Diligence

This workflow automates the high-volume, repetitive task of surveying hundreds of suppliers, extracting data from unstructured declarations (PDFs, emails, portal forms), and cross-referencing it against regulatory frameworks like the Dodd-Frank Act and OECD Due Diligence Guidance. The operational upside comes from eliminating manual follow-up, reducing data-entry errors by over 90%, and compressing a quarterly process that takes weeks into a continuous operation. This directly lowers compliance labor costs and mitigates the risk of non-compliance fines and reputational damage by providing a real-time, auditable view of supply chain risk.

Implementation integrates with supplier master data in SAP Ariba or Oracle, using headless browser agents for portal scraping and LLM-based extraction for documents. The validation engine checks for completeness, conflicts, and against known smelter lists. Exceptions are routed via ServiceNow or a custom dashboard for procurement or compliance officer review. The final report assembly agent maps validated data into required frameworks (e.g., CMRT forms) and pushes to a governance layer for sign-off. Critical controls include immutable audit trails for all data changes, approval gates for exceptions, and continuous monitoring of supplier response rates to trigger escalations.

This architecture automates a high-volume, high-risk manual process: surveying hundreds of suppliers, validating their declarations against the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, and assembling audit-ready reports for frameworks like the Dodd-Frank Act. The operational upside comes from eliminating weeks of manual follow-up, reducing data entry errors, and creating a continuous monitoring posture that strengthens regulatory defense. It directly integrates with supplier portals, ERP systems like SAP Ariba, and document management platforms to create a single source of truth.

Implementation requires a LangGraph or similar orchestration layer to manage the stateful workflow across specialized agents for survey dispatch, document parsing (using LLMs with RAG over smelter lists), and data validation. Critical controls include human-in-the-loop gates for non-compliant declarations, immutable audit trails for all agent decisions, and integration with the corporate CLM for contract alignment. The system is deployed to monitor declaration expiry, trigger re-surveys, and feed aggregated data directly into annual ESG reporting cycles, ensuring persistent compliance.

Phase 1 establishes the core automation engine. We deploy survey agents to collect declarations via supplier portals and email, using headless browsers and NLP to extract data from PDFs and forms. This data is validated against known smelter lists and previous submissions, with exceptions flagged in a centralized case queue. This initial layer alone automates 70-80% of manual data collection, cutting the quarterly effort from weeks to days and providing immediate labor leverage for your compliance team.

Phase 2 integrates the workflow with enterprise systems like SAP Ariba or Oracle Procurement, enabling automatic triggering based on new supplier onboarding or material master updates. Phase 3 adds advanced analytics and predictive risk scoring, using the aggregated data to model supply chain exposure. Each phase is governed by approval gates, detailed audit logs, and rollback capabilities, ensuring the system meets strict legal and internal governance requirements while delivering compounding time and risk-reduction savings.

A custom conflict mineral reporting workflow automates the collection, validation, and aggregation of supplier declarations to comply with frameworks like the Dodd-Frank Act and the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation. It eliminates the manual, error-prone process of emailing spreadsheets and chasing suppliers, reducing the quarterly reporting cycle from weeks to days. The operational upside comes from lower compliance labor costs, reduced risk of inaccurate filings, and the ability to conduct continuous due diligence rather than point-in-time snapshots, strengthening supply chain transparency.

Implementation requires integrating with supplier master data, deploying headless browser agents for portal navigation, and connecting to document understanding models for CMRT validation. Critical controls include exception routing for non-responsive suppliers, confidence scoring for extracted data, and mandatory human-in-the-loop approval before final report submission. A phased rollout starts with top-tier suppliers, iterates on survey logic, and scales to the full base, ensuring data quality and supplier adoption are managed without disrupting the existing compliance process.

The workflow's primary value is eliminating the manual, quarterly scramble to survey hundreds of suppliers and reconcile disparate declarations. It automates the collection, validation, and aggregation of smelter and country-of-origin data required under frameworks like the Dodd-Frank Act and the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation. Savings come from reducing legal and procurement labor by 70-80% and mitigating the risk of non-compliance fines and reputational damage through systematic, evidence-backed reporting.

Implementation requires orchestrators like LangGraph to manage state across systems. Key integrations include ERP APIs (SAP S/4HANA, Oracle) for supplier lists, document management systems for storing validated Conflict Minerals Reporting Templates (CMRTs), and email/portal automation for outreach. Controls are essential: all supplier communications must be logged, data validation requires human review of flagged discrepancies, and the final report must route through a formal approval gate in a system like ServiceNow or a legal workflow before submission, creating a defensible audit trail.