Supplier Audits - Do we have to Rate suppliers?

[Marc]

This thread was imported and the sequence of posts was messed up. I think it started with this:

Originally Posted by clark530

I work for a company that is not ISO certified. They have sent me through Lead Auditor/Lead Assessor training. We want to qualify our suppliers. Purchasing and engineering have taken my Supplier Audit Checklist which uses the 20 Elements and totally changed it. They do not want to rate our suppliers they think. They just want to ask yes or no questions. What can I say to convince them that we should use a rating system for example Satisfactory, Concern, Non Conformance, Not Applicable. Help

Even if it's yes-no questions there has to be numbers! I see no problem with a yes no as long there is an evaluation methodology. What does 5 yes's and 16 no's mean? You have to have some sort of criteria.
Or try a cattle prod while they're sitting on the pot. Stick it under the door - nail their ankle - and they won't even know who did it. But you can smile a lot when you see them as you pass in the hall. They may still not rate the suppliers, but you'll be happy anyway! Cattle prods are always good for a laugh!

I'm not from a Purchasing environment and may not have the best examples, but consider these:

1. You may need to qualify two suppliers of the same commodity, one as a back-up. Both will rate 'Yes' on the important questions but one will be better than the other. Of course you'll use the best as your primary supplier and only the 'shades of gray' answers will document which one that is.

2. If you're checking ISO registration as one of your qualifiers, the company that's not registered may actually be complying with the standards better, and making a better product, than the registered supplier (is that heresy?). You'll need some explanatory text on that one.

There are probably better examples and it occurs to me that if I had to audit under the constraints facing you, I couldn't expect to provide management with the information they really need.

I work for a company that is not ISO certified. They have sent me through Lead Auditor/Lead Assessor training. We want to qualify our suppliers. Purchasing and engineering have taken my Supplier Audit Checklist which uses the 20 Elements and totally changed it. They do not want to rate our suppliers they think. They just want to ask yes or no questions. What can I say to convince them that we should use a rating system for example Satisfactory, Concern, Non Conformance, Not Applicable. Help

[Jim Biz]

Wally - do you get a higher rating for speling? Or do you simply avoid Marc's cattle prod

[barb butrym]

the really savy edit out the "edited by" so it only shows one....:-)

[Kevin Mader]

Barb,

You're too clever! Still, I don't think it will help me much. Without spell check, I am plain awful!

Marc,

Quite the prankster! Unfortunately (or quite possibly, Fortunately) I share that same affliction. The lighter-side is a good thing.

Wally,

Don't worry about the spelling too much. I can barely read anyway and wouldn't know if your spelling (and Jim's) is good or bad (LOL).

And speaking of good and bad, I will throw this one out to the group...

Nothing new, I suppose, as we have discussed scale systems for rating audit responses/supplier status. Scaling systems are not as useful as people suppose they are (unless a correlation study was done and shows how ratings are connected to response details, I would be skeptical). If one is to use a scaling system, then you should do so understanding this.

As for yes or no, good or bad, descriptions, these are amongst the worst, IMHO. The less descriptive, the higher probability of generating bad data and incorrect conclusions.

Regards,

Kevin

[Marc]

Living seriously is dangerous...