SUPPLIER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
In most industries, suppliers play a significant role in the success and perception of an organization. Bad suppliers equal bad products or services, more cost, and poor customer satisfaction. Management of the supply base has evolved over the years from organizations making demands and punishing suppliers for poor performance to creating partnerships and developing suppliers to improve performance. That doesn’t mean organizations don’t take punitive actions or that they don’t changes sources, they do. But retesting product, performing incoming or source inspection, getting a new supplier up to speed on a troublesome product, moving equipment, etc. is time consuming and expensive, and there are no guarantee that the endeavor will succeed.
Companies with mature supplier quality programs: form strategic partnerships with their critical suppliers; establish supplier qualification processes; conduct supplier audits on critical suppliers and problematic suppliers to ensure adequate quality systems and execution thereof; monitor supplier performance with metrics or scorecards that typically include delivery, performance and cost; flow down quality system requirements; and execute a closed loop corrective action process to ensure suppliers are root causing problems and implementing adequate corrective actions.
It’s important when working with your supply base to be clear about expectations up front, provide documented requirements (preferably in contracts or purchase order terms and conditions), and be fair to suppliers with respect to assessing blame for issues and charging them back for costs. Be firm but be fair.
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THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT RESOURCE
SUPPLIER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
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Home | Webmaster | Contact TQMR | Privacy Policy | Linkbacks
THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT RESOURCE
SUPPLIER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
