ISO 9001 Clause 7.4.1 Supplier Evaluation - What methodics do you use to evaluate?

[MD]

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 !

[Fire Girl]

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?

[tomvehoski]

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

[Jim Biz]

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

Personal Visits (do a customer/supplier audit)

Regards
Jim

[Trakman]

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!

[gpainter]

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.

[db]

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