How can we track the delivery performance of each supplier?

[faujix]

we had an interesting cmeeting today but not come up with a solution.

Backgound: We are a Fortune 1000 company in the consumer product industry. WE have about 6 plants in the country and a supplier could be delivering to a single plant or to more than one plant depending on its expertise. We also have some of our major suppliers in the Pacific Rim.

Issue : How do we track the delivery performance of each supplier ?

Problem:

When a supplier loads a truck to be shipped to us, the truck company is ours. Also, the truck might sit in the dock for a couple of days or more before the parts are puled out and formally received in the system. However each plant is different. A couple of plants are much better than others.

Bone of contention:

If we track the supplier by its shipping date than the process becomes manual. In the sense , the supplier has to call the Material planner and let him know that the shipment has been loaded . This might also be done by a simple spreadsheet. This does track pure delivery performance but the process is manual and therefore cumbersome as well as prone to error.

On the other hand if we measure the supplier by the receipt date, we are adding a lot of "noise" factor-viz. our truck's performance plus the unload time.

How do we handle this paradox ? Adding to this complication is the delivery if our Asian suppliers where the uncertainty of transportation and customs etc add a lot of "noise" factor. What would your suggestions be ?

Thx

I'll be "kind", for the moment, and only ask:

How far into 6 sigma are you?

[Sam]

Interesting, ew had a similar problem but not on such a large scale.
IMO break the process up into smaller "bite" by using a flow chart i.e.,

- Receipt of order to the time the product reaches the shipping.
- the time it reaches the shipping dock till it is loaded on the truck,
- the time it is loaded on the tgruck till the customer receives it.

you can do it manually or on spread sheets, but you need to gather enough data about each supplier so that you can develop a cross functional system.

I sure I have over simplified, but you are fortunate in one respect, you have your own trucks. We don't and therefore have no control over delivery after it leaves our plant.

[CarolX]

Hello fujix,

Can this work????

You own the trucking company, and I assume somewhere on your shipping documents (bill of lading) is the date the material was placed on the truck. Record this as your received date. You may also be able to use this data to compare how long a truck "sits" in a dock waiting to be "formally" received. Sounds like it could be days that are wasted (and a place for improvement).

Regards,
CarolX

[Marc]

I'd like to resurrect this thread because I'm looking at this issue with respect to TS 16949 paragraph 7.4.3.2 Supplier monitoring.

How are you tracking supplier delivery performance? I'd particularly like to hear from those of you with more complex systems especially where 'expedited shipping' cannot be used because often the shipment is expedited because of 'urgent' or 'last minute' requirements by the company and as such it cannot be used to 'ding' a supplier.

Your thoughts?

[Valeri]

The only time we "ding" our suppliers is if their timeliness of delivery causes problems for production - either quality or on-time delivery to our customer.

On emergency items, we work with our suppliers and depending on their promise, will issue a SCAR only if there is blatant disregard for the delivery date. Most relationships with our suppliers are very good and we rarely have any problems with emergency issues.

[jaimezepeda]

Originally Posted by faujix

Issue : How do we track the delivery performance of each supplier ?

Problem:

When a supplier loads a truck to be shipped to us, the truck company is ours. Also, the truck might sit in the dock for a couple of days or more before the parts are puled out and formally received in the system. However each plant is different. A couple of plants are much better than others.

Bone of contention:

If we track the supplier by its shipping date than the process becomes manual. In the sense , the supplier has to call the Material planner and let him know that the shipment has been loaded . This might also be done by a simple spreadsheet. This does track pure delivery performance but the process is manual and therefore cumbersome as well as prone to error.

To avoid manual collection of data your supplier could transmit an EDI (electronic data interchange) advance shipment notification (ASN) for each shipment. In essence a notification of what has been loaded into what truck. You could reconcile this shipment date against any PO acknowledgments that the supplier has sent.

EDI is very prevalent and many variants have surfaced since the internet has become so prevalent.

Jaime

[Marc]

Originally Posted by Valeri

The only time we "ding" our suppliers is if their timeliness of delivery causes problems for production - either quality or on-time delivery to our customer.

On emergency items, we work with our suppliers and depending on their promise, will issue a SCAR only if there is blatant disregard for the delivery date. Most relationships with our suppliers are very good and we rarely have any problems with emergency issues.

What do you use / How do you track and reconcile promise date vs. actual received date?