What methodics do you use to evaluate your suppliers?
As ISO 9001:2000 clause 7.4.1 says "The organization shall evaluate and select suppliers in accordance with organizations requirements."
How exactly do you evaluate them?
Any new ideas, methodics suggerstions would be greatly appreciated http://16949.com/ubb/smile.gif!

When we initially started our ISO 9001:1994, many of our suppliers we approved on past performance. Now we send out "Inital Quality Survey Checklist" which asks a variety of questions. However, if the company has a registered quality system like ISO or QS 9000 they do not need to complete the survey, just send us a copy of their cert.

If the supplier causes us to generate a significant number of NCR's we may generate a CPAR. We also have a supplier rating system.

I hope I kind of answered your question. Anybody else with some ideas?

http://16949.com/ubb/smile.gif

I agree with the past performance (try to avoid the word "Grandfather") for existing suppliers and surveys. For "mission critical" suppliers I try to do my own audit. Even if they are ISO/QS, it does not mean they are meeting all of MY requirements. I like to do product/process specific audits. During my toy train SQE days I would often drive for four hours to do a 30 minute audit, buy off on production samples, and drive home. Long day, but it was much cheaper than rejection, sort, scrap, remake, late production start, sort some more, scrap some more, late shipment, customer complaints, etc.

Too bad I could never find many manufacturing facilities in Hawaii or Las Vegas.

Tom

Surveys of their methods
(include all relevant items that standards require)

Personal Visits (do a customer/supplier audit)

Regards
Jim

We have been reviewing every supplier annually. We have almost 120 suppliers, and formally reviewing each one annually is a massive effort.

I am considering that suppliers get formally reviewed at the start of a new project/contract (projects/contracts go for 1 to 4 years). Our appproved supplier list indicates when ISO certs expire, stricter incoming inspections, etc... so the monitoring really occurs as an ongoing process during the initial requisition phase.

During the project/contract, for suppliers that cause us headaches, we impose stricter monitoring, tightened incoming inspections, and other techniques to ensure that their quality (lack of) will not affect our product or service.

Does anyone else formally review suppliers on a project/contract basis, not on a calendar time basis?

Thanks!


:confused:

We send out a survey, may also do an on-site visit,check references and value.
Current suppliers are evaluated on a scoring system based on quality and on-time delivery.

I see this to be a two-step process:

1. Determine what you want from your suppliers. Don’t tie yourself into a knot by trying to apply all the supplier requirements to all suppliers. You can have different “rules” for different classes of materials, or even different suppliers. Carrying this to the extreme, you could list kickbacks as a requirement.
2. The second step is deciding how you will evaluate your suppliers based on the requirements outlined in step one. Once again, the evaluations vary from class of material and/or individual supplier. [Personally, I hate surveys.]

The important thing to remember is that the rules are yours. If you publish the rules, and stick to them, you should have no problem.

Hope that helps
Dave B

We Have the vendor evaluation sheet (1 page long), anything more & they don't bother filling it out.

We are also evaluating all of our suppliers on a regular basis. we will meet with each supplier. Once a week a supplier will come in for a heart to heart visit (until all are done, then we start over), up date information, discuss problems & what we can do for each other to build our relationship. They can be called inearly if we need to.

We also have a probation system in place for evaluation. The 1st 3 deliveries are monitored & inspected thoroughly. If there are no problems with the deliveries (qty, on time, etc.) they are taken off probation. They can be put back on probation if NCR's are issued against them. Purchasing & QC determine that.

We also visit their facility (if possible).

Good Luck

We use a detailed Supplier Assesment program to initially evaluate suppliers and follow this up with an annual review against supplier RCAs using a guidline that details acceptable criteria.

We are also going to 'stategic sourcing'. I'm adding a recent announcement from our President and COO:
On the cost reduction front, I had the opportunity to review the progress of the six commodity teams on Thursday via teleconference with each of the teams. The Team Leaders and Team members had very impressive results to show for just six weeks of effort. This focus on the top six commodities is demonstrating significant cost reduction opportunities well beyond our initial estimates. The key to these savings will be a new, disciplined approach to what we buy, whom we buy from and the terms and conditions of the focus. Discipline and the ability to leverage our global spending will offer tremendous improvements in the cost and quality of the goods and services we purchase throughout the world. If you had any doubts regarding the potential success of the strategic sourcing effort, the results of this teamwork will put all of those doubts to rest. Implementation has already begun, and I am really looking forward to our next meeting in December to see the impact to our bottom line!!

Here's my nickels worth...

You can survey, survey, survey...but the proof is and always will be the quality of the product....sometimes nothing beats good ol' incoming inspection.

Just something to think about.

CarolX

I agree Carol

I know the answer to my question varies with industry...but what do you look at for incoming inspection?

just wondering.

thanks tim

We do very little incoming inspection here. The sheet metal is inspected before it is placed in the machine. We don't inspect hardware at incoming, and if we find an issue at installation, we toss the batch and have the distributer send another batch (I have seen this happen maybe 3 times in 7.5 years). A few machined parts we purchase and inspect dimensionally at incoming. That's about it.

Regards,
Carol

Just the way it should be Carol "very little incoming inspection"

I would be grateful for comments from others following comments made by our ISO assessor this week.
I had added the following to our manual for the 2000 standard requirements:
'one or more of the following methods shall be used to approve suppliers:
Audit or on site review
Satisfactory history of supply
Accreditation by an appropriate authority (eg BSI, A2LA, UKAS etc)'

I have been told that I should list the criteria that are to be used for the history of supply.
Have you all been documenting the criteria? In the manual?
In our industry incoming inspection is minimal (& things still run fine!) and if the supplied goods are converted into a satisfactory product then things are ok. If not then we investigate, work with the supplier to correct and if he continues to give a problem then he is replaced. We have not got the people to go round gathering loads of information about goods and suppliers (and would not benefit from it anyway).
Should my criteria for supplier choice simply be - price, not so late that production runs out of incoming goods, and that the goods do not have an adverse affect on the final article?

Add after history (Quality of product, on time delivery, etc.)

I would watch out about the "not so late..." statement. We have ours written up so that the due date is the date it must be at our door. If not NCR is issued.

Enough NCR's & you go on probation.

We have limited incoming inspection...did we get what we ordered & the correct number of pieces, is it damaged, is it on time, pretty much wraps it up.

hope this helps...if you need to email me.

tim

5.2 The evaluation and selection of subcontractors is based on but not limited to SUBCONTRACTOR EVALUATION, trade references, quotations, value and the purchasing managers discretion, depending on customer requirements.
This is how we do it and have had no problems to date. This is in our tier 2 System Procedure Manual.

Originally posted by JLMorris
I have been told that I should list the criteria that are to be used for the history of supply.
Have you all been documenting the criteria? In the manual?
In our industry incoming inspection is minimal (& things still run fine!) and if the supplied goods are converted into a satisfactory product then things are ok. If not then we investigate, work with the supplier to correct and if he continues to give a problem then he is replaced. We have not got the people to go round gathering loads of information about goods and suppliers (and would not benefit from it anyway).
Should my criteria for supplier choice simply be - price, not so late that production runs out of incoming goods, and that the goods do not have an adverse affect on the final article?

It sounds to me like the auditor is only looking for references to be used, i.e. "We consider satisfactory history of Supply when meeting the following requirements: 1. Compliance to material/part specs per order (?%), 2. On-time shipment/delivery (?%), 3. Customer Services/Support (?%)...etc"

For your second question, doesn't everyone want the most suitable product at the least cost? You have to use judgement when identifying what is important for fit/form/durability.

So what is the criteria for evaluating suppliers historically?

ans: Whatever you want!
(think of evaluating your favourite pizza joint... I got what I want, when I wanted it, how I wanted it....)

:)Easy Way:
For a number of "new" suppliers, I had an experienced engineer send me an email outlining that he had dealt with a supplier in a previous company with no problems. I told him the email must contain nice statements concerning issues such as:

-product delivered on time
-delivered what we ordered
-responded to any problems quite well
-charged us what was quoted
-packaged the goods for shipment appropriately
-the product performed as expected

Thus with a positive reference email from an experienced person outlining the above criteria that you have specified, this has sufficed. (He claimed the pizza was great, and delivered in under 33 minutes!)

:(Hard Way:
Send out surveys. You will be chasing them for months...

Please, give me you comments to 7.4.1. clause (“Purchasing process”) requirement to “criteria for suppliers evaluation and reevaluation”-
It is understandable for me what “criteria for suppliers selection” are. But what are implied under “criteria for suppliers evaluation and reevaluation” ?
Thanks for your help.

Warshe,

There are several discussions about supplier evaluation, perhaps you might check them out to see if what you are looking for is there. Otherwise, about the only thing I can add is basically, your criteria for selection of a vendor is usually the same criteria you evaluate them on. If I am misinterpreting your question I apologize.

Have a good one!:)

Basically, you need to state not only what is important to select a supplier but what 'measureable' you are going to evaluate them for continued use as a supplier.

If you have a supplier that meets (this is some of our criteria) product quality, order fullfulment, on-time delivery, etc... Then you would keep them as suppliers. However, if you have a supplier that continually is lacking in any of those areas....and has not imrpoved despite trying to work with them and stressing the importance...then it's time to remove them as suppliers and find another.

The criteria (as with any clause) is based on your companies needs. Your Materials Manager is probably already tracking what she/he feels is important, get her/his input.

Eileen

I'm interested to know of people's experiences in supplier evaluation. Specifically, the cost/benefit of performing quality system audits on-site at supplier's premises as opposed to other in-house means. I'd also be interested to know what those other means might be.

My company has performed on-site audits of suppliers only very sporadically in the last couple years. Mostly we rely on data gathered regarding product nonconformities, corrective actions, reject rates, etc.

Thanks in advance for your input and feedback!

Carl - We do on-site audits of new suppliers who don't have 3rd party certification to ISO/QS (when practical). Obviously we don't run out to a small supplier of a limited use material. Someone has to look at each situation and make that decision.

Once on board, we track our suppliers in an evaluation process. If low grades are noted, or there are issues which need hands-on resolution, we schedule an on-site audit to see if we can help with any problems. This way we gain "points" for our supplier development requirement.

There are other good ways of evaluation, self assessment comes to mind. If you sent out a self assessment, you could review it and use it to determine if an on-site audit were necessary.

Dave

Dave's advice is sound. Generally we only do on-site audits of a supplier of critical and/or complex components and send self-assessment surveys about once a year for less critical vendors or simpler components, or for vendors with a history of good performance after an on-site visit. If development work is required by the vendor often a meeting at the vendor's facility can be dual-purpose -- technical discussions and Q audit. Of course as Dave said if there are problems with an important supplier a visit can help both sides.

Meeting face-to-face and doing on-site audits may be the ideal if you have the time and budget for it. There is much to be said for developing closer, more personal relationships with suppliers that comes from face-to-face contact, but this is not always practical or affordable. With communication being what it is today, faxes, e-mail, phone calls, and even videoconferences can still help forge a good relationship or maintain one started in-person. I would suggest checking in or communicating with your vendor at least 4 times a year even if everything is going well -- tell them if all is well and thank them and this will help build the relationship for the day when something may go wrong. Let your records and history of success or problems with a particular vendor be your guide.