Our company has an approved vendors list which contains EVERY supplier we currently have. Our procedures state that we are able to use a supplier once (in an emergency) without them being place on the list. We want to change our procedures to state that " suppliers that affect our product" will be on the approved vendors list. We find ourselfs spending alot of time trying to get suppliers who have very little impact on our final product to fill out our questionairre. An example of these suppliers would be the gas station we may buy fuel from for our trucks while on the road or Tim Hortons where we buy our employees donuts on Saturdays. I know that every supplier does effect the final product wether the affect was cheering up the employees Saturday which in turn they produce a better product. Where is the line drawn?:D Do we decide?

Tracey

Absolutely YOU decide.

Suppliers of raw material, and sub-contractors are a good place to start, and yes focus on the product !

Thank you M Greenway. Up until last November we had a consultant who really made things more confusing than they had to be. She told us that EVERY company/person that we purchase anything from must be on the list. We have had to write Corrective action after corrective action on this issue. I think there has been one open since I took over in November.

My advice is never use consultants !

Too many have a vested interest in making things far more complicated and beurocratic than they need be.

Any system of control should be based on an analysis of the risks involved, and appropriate action taken based on that analysis.

Tracey,

IMO your consultant was a nut!:bonk:

I agree with Martin (again -- twice in one day so far!). The phrase "where is the shall" comes to mind. The standard says you must determine the "type and extent of control" and the "criteria for selection, evaluation, and re-evaluation". It does not say what your consultant is saying. Do what works for you. We excluded by policy suppliers of stuff like office supplies, general hand tools, and food/drink from needing formal evaluation. For the balance of suppliers of product-related stuff, depending on the criticality of the product/service, we use either a mailed survey, on-site visit, previously demonstrated performance, or "emergency approval" by one of the "top dogs".

Tracey - Looks like this one is answered already.

I can tell you how we approached this:
* Set classifications regarding the quality impact on product (or equipment, etc...based on your needs)
* Establish supplier criteria on classifications
* Only those suppliers providing parts/services/equip/etc.. within established classifications must be evaluated to the criteria defined.

Hope it helps,
Eileen

:bigwave:
Thanks again, cove members, for your help. I now feel confident in proceding with the changes. I must say that I agree totally about the cunsultant ( in this case anyway). There was much unneeded work and confusion due to her. When I took over there was nothing but resentment towards ISO. Nobody wanted any part of it. Slowly but surely we are pulling it together.

Martin said:
My advice is never use consultants !

As a consultant, I take exception to that remark. However, you must ALWAYS listen carefully to what they say. Any time a consultant says you have to do something that is not a direct “shall”, you should question it.


Mike S said:
The phrase "where is the shall" comes to mind.

Hey! That's my line! :eek:

Good advice though.

db said "Hey! That's my line!"

Yep, and like a good consultant you've taught me something!:smokin:

As a minor comment...

In a small company where the President eagle-eyes everything...

For purchases where Visa can be utilized they do not have to be approved suppliers nor is the requisition/PO required.

So, to get the Visa card in the first place you must go through the President. HA! gotcha!

All suppliers that we have an account with are reviewed and approved. Here's how:

Information Review
We gather all company information and place it on the internal intranet system for all employees to reference. Obviously companies that seem unlikely to deliver we don't order product from them, or post them. (the purchasing mgr can do this)

Quality Review
Check for ISO cert (get copy), get the name of the QA rep, emails, phone #'s etc... (QA does this)

Done!

Problems with suppliers and/or products are recorded, and if performance is poor, they get suspended/removed form the list, and NO PO's can be placed to them.

I work for a small (165 employee) company. We have a Critical Raw Materials list. To be on the list, a company has to either (in order of preference):
1. Have us come and do a site audit
2. Have ISO 9000 registration or equiv.
3. Fill out a long questionnaire (Yuck).

We avoid #3 whenever possible. We actually had one guy rate himself at 100%!!! He got the next audit.

This way we can concentrate on the critical few, however doing a site audit on the donut shop sounds interesting...

Hello Craig, and Welcome!

The audit of the supplier for us is very expensive, and thus it is not warranted. There are a few suppliers I would LOVE to scream AUDIT the CLOWNS! whew, I feel better. (you know what I mean)

The trick is to have the approved supplier list available to everyone that requires the information to call them for quotes, orders, inquiries, and to return defective goods. We don't box ourselves in by stating that they must be audited, or have an ISO cert. We are just outside of Toronto and to audit a supplier in the US for $1000 worth of materials is out of the question. It would cost us more than that to audit them.

Of those main suppliers that provide a critical component of our finished product, and they have repeatedly messed up, we place ordering restrictions on them, identifiable right in the supplier list. Things like "Must provide a test and inspection report with each unit..." and it works well.

Note that we inherently trust suppliers, even better if they have an ISO cert.

It works for us.
Keep it simple.
Use audit hammer only if necessary, since it is work for you too.

Trakman, I agree. The cost component must be weighed against the cost of failure component, and the likelihood of failure, when considering this.

We are a small company, and for the high-usage items we like to do a site visit in which we check suppliers to make sure their specs agree with ours and get an impression of what their capabilities are. We ask questions and discuss any previous problems and dig for areas that could become problems. It sure is easier to work through a situation if there is a previous face-to-face relationship, however brief.

Again, though, our window cleaner and floor mop suppliers won't be seeing us any time soon.

At the risk of sounding heretical, or being a real doubting-Thomas, I wonder what your opinions are regarding approval of vendors due to them having an ISO cert.

I have seen where having an ISO cert. is sufficient for vendor approval for some companies (including mine!). And I wonder what it's really worth. My company is certified to ISO9002:1994 (9001:2000 is just around the corner!), and I know the struggles we still have. And our suppliers are ISO certified and I know the problems we have with them. Is everyone really comfortable approving a supplier because they have an ISO cert?

Just wondering...:thedeal:

Am I comfortable accepting an ISO cert as the "ticket to entry" for our approved supplier list? Not really, but we have to start somewhere.

We process kaolin clay, so there are only a few "mission critical" materials, which we watch pretty closely. The rest of the suppliers on our list include packaging makers and calibration services.

We do monitor performance of our suppliers. I have done it rarely, but if there is a supplier unable or unwilling to do what we need, even if they are on the list with an ISO 9001 certificate, they no longer get our business.

If we were making nuclear reactors, an ISO 9001 certificate as the only criteria would scare the heck out of me.

Good discussion indeed. It depends of course (somewhat related to the depends you may use for incontenence :ca: ) on your industry, and the supplier's ability to meet your expectations.

In the short time I have been doing QA, I have found that having a meeting or telephone discussion with the chief QA people at a new supplier to get a gut feel if they are decent or just a bozo goes a long way. Then if something is not right you know who to talk to. It works very well for us. If they don't have a dedicated QA person, then they are not serious about quality! Bye-Bye!!:biglaugh:

Sometimes companies have no dedicated QA chief, just the VP that is more interested in marketing that the genuine concepts of QA. Beware! I usually approve them with caution, and a lot more questions.

Approving suppliers is Judgement, intuition, get-to-know-them, scrutinize their product, delivery, and their overall attitute when you run into difficulties, and +++++. Audit is excellent, but it is costly.

And No, an ISO cert is not the golden halo we make it out to be.

Judgement.
Judgement.
More Judgement. ;)