Suppliers for R&D department - Approved?

[WisdomseekerSC]

Our R&D department loves to order and experiment with new materials many of which are not ordered from suppliers on our approved supplier list (ASL). I realize that if the materials work well for the application and the prototype proves feasible that the suppliers will need to be approved prior to using the materials in production. I have thought of creating a new category or list of suppliers called "Research Only Material SUppliers" and "Research Only Service Providers" that would not fall under the requirements for approval during the research stages of product development. How are others handling this issue?

Another dilemma is when the novel raw materials or services are made by small startups that do not have a quality system. We then must assume the responsibility for them. Purchasing and Quality departments are at odds with R&D under these circumstances. Any advice on the best way to handle this situation?

[Ronen E]

Hi,

The best (and actually the only) advice I can offer, is leave R&D be under the design control SOPs. If these are properly established, they will give more than enough control, documentation, breaks and balances to ensure proper conduct on development stages and swift transfer on later stages. The generic requirement for critical review and justification of just about everything under design control will, in most cases, ensure that R&D will not put you into too much mess.

Under this approach, no need to restrain R&D with "suppliers evaluation and approval" procedures, and as a consequence, the requirement for a quality system becomes a matter of benefit vs. burden, rather than a mandatory issue.

Cheers,
Ronen.

(The undersigned is a R&D veteran who crossed the lines into QA )

Originally Posted by WisdomseekerSC

Our R&D department loves to order and experiment with new materials many of which are not ordered from suppliers on our approved supplier list (ASL). I realize that if the materials work well for the application and the prototype proves feasible that the suppliers will need to be approved prior to using the materials in production. I have thought of creating a new category or list of suppliers called "Research Only Material SUppliers" and "Research Only Service Providers" that would not fall under the requirements for approval during the research stages of product development. How are others handling this issue?

Another dilemma is when the novel raw materials or services are made by small startups that do not have a quality system. We then must assume the responsibility for them. Purchasing and Quality departments are at odds with R&D under these circumstances. Any advice on the best way to handle this situation?

[gholland]

We break our development process up into stages. R/D and advanced concepts fall into 'Stage 0' which is a open playing field with no mandated controls or lists. This allows the eggheads to play and not get upset about having their 'creativity constrained' by things such as rules and regulations.

Once the 'idea' is officially a project as determined by management it gets kicked over into stage 1 and Design Controls start. At that point the suppliers must get put on the ASL, etc etc.

I wouldn't support the 'research only' list fo suppliers, it's a burden to the R/D people and will just be more headache for little gain. If you put out a list of 'research only' suppliers the R/D folks will come up with a new supplier that isn't on your list and will work around it rather than take the time to fill out the forms and get put on the list. Or they'll forget because they consider it non-value added. That's what I did when I worked as an engineer in R/D...

[somashekar]

Originally Posted by WisdomseekerSC

Our R&D department loves to order and experiment with new materials many of which are not ordered from suppliers on our approved supplier list (ASL). I realize that if the materials work well for the application and the prototype proves feasible that the suppliers will need to be approved prior to using the materials in production. I have thought of creating a new category or list of suppliers called "Research Only Material SUppliers" and "Research Only Service Providers" that would not fall under the requirements for approval during the research stages of product development. How are others handling this issue?

Another dilemma is when the novel raw materials or services are made by small startups that do not have a quality system. We then must assume the responsibility for them. Purchasing and Quality departments are at odds with R&D under these circumstances. Any advice on the best way to handle this situation?

This is a very good opening post and I am sure many across the industries are faced with this.
First thing is that R&D must realize at every stage that what ever they do is finally for the production activities to take over and do in numbers. Like we talk about manufacturability or serviceability and such stuff, the R&D purchasing activity must be a branch of the purchasing process and look into the aspect of long term availability, ability of the existing supplier to develop parts which are similar to already supplied parts and these must form a vital part of the design review meetings.
The more thought and plan done at this stage, the better the purchasing activities when design outputs come to manufacturing. Going further, at appropriate time the necessary controls on such out-sourced processes, if necessary, will be a lot more easier.
Its all about the interaction of the design process with other processes, and the better this interaction is, lesser the dilemma. Evaluation and selection of any new supplier takes birth during the design stages. When R&D works in isolation, the dilemma in other production processes crops up.

[alspread]

I'm going through a similar situation myself right now. Its a real dilemma.

On the one hand, you want to permit some lattitude for the design folks ("eggheads") to permit them to be creative and all.

But, on the other hand there is a requirement to control and approve suppliers.

If you give them too much rope it gets messy later when you have to reel it in. Meaning you either need to get that R & D supplier approved, or find another supplier to make the product or do the process and have to re-learn everything all over again.

If you put too much control on the R & D group it will stifle the process and they'll probably just find a way to work around it anyway. We hired them because they were smart and resourceful.

The ERP/MRP system requires the suppliers to be loaded anyway. So I went with a special designator for suppliers approved for R & D work. They can use suppliers from either group (production or R & D) to make their R & D parts. I won't say that I am crazy about this approach, but I had to do something.

By the way, the other driver comes from the sourcing group who are always trying to reduce the overall number of suppliers too.

Good Luck

[Sidney Vianna]

Slightly
From a risk management perspective, keep in mind that whatever suppliers, materials, technologies being validated during the R&D phase have to be considered for volume manufacturing. I have seen a few number of cases where a supplier being used by R&D did not have any intention to increase their production capacity to support volume manufacturing. And the company developing the product could not qualify any supplier to support the volume demand, once the product design was approved.

So, make sure that the materials, processes, suppliers, etc. will be there to support the work at the rates necessary to make the product/program profitable.

There is no point going through the effort and expense of validating a new product design, if it can not be offered in a commercial basis, because of supplier limitations.

[Helmut Jilling]

Originally Posted by WisdomseekerSC

Our R&D department loves to order and experiment with new materials many of which are not ordered from suppliers on our approved supplier list (ASL). I realize that if the materials work well for the application and the prototype proves feasible that the suppliers will need to be approved prior to using the materials in production. I have thought of creating a new category or list of suppliers called "Research Only Material SUppliers" and "Research Only Service Providers" that would not fall under the requirements for approval during the research stages of product development. How are others handling this issue?

Another dilemma is when the novel raw materials or services are made by small startups that do not have a quality system. We then must assume the responsibility for them. Purchasing and Quality departments are at odds with R&D under these circumstances. Any advice on the best way to handle this situation?

R&D needs to have some flexibility to experiment, but as Sidney explained, if it is to be commercialized, then that opens up another layer of validation. Maybe you should view it as a series of layers and approvals, the closer it gets to commercial product, the more ironed out it needs to become.

[DrM2u]

Originally Posted by WisdomseekerSC

Our R&D department loves to order and experiment with new materials many of which are not ordered from suppliers on our approved supplier list (ASL). I realize that if the materials work well for the application and the prototype proves feasible that the suppliers will need to be approved prior to using the materials in production. I have thought of creating a new category or list of suppliers called "Research Only Material SUppliers" and "Research Only Service Providers" that would not fall under the requirements for approval during the research stages of product development. How are others handling this issue?

Here's about worth of wisdom: what is the value of creating (another) list of suppliers? I don't recall any requirement in the ISO 9001 standard (clause 7.4) that an organization maintains a list of approved suppliers. One requirement is that suppliers are selected based on some established criteria. Does your selection criteria include availabiltiy of materials? For example, if you can procure a certain material only from a certain supplier, can you approve that suppleir simply on that criteria?

Originally Posted by WisdomseekerSC

Another dilemma is when the novel raw materials or services are made by small startups that do not have a quality system. We then must assume the responsibility for them. Purchasing and Quality departments are at odds with R&D under these circumstances. Any advice on the best way to handle this situation?

I am not sure what you mean here: "we then must assume the responsibility for them". Are you assuming the responsibility for the supplier or for the material? If you are talking about the supplier, you are assuming the responsibility for selecting that supplier regardless if that supplier has a QMS or not (unless that supplier is specified by the customer). If you are talking about the material, the responsibility for compliance with your specifications remains with the supplier. You could implement an internal verification process (i.e. receiving inspection) but that does not absolve the supplier of their responsibilities. Of course, local regulations might have an impact on responsibilities beyond the contractual agreements.