Designing Supplier Questionnaire Forms

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Just a quick plea to everyone designing supplier questionnaires... As many Cove dwellers already know, I do not exactly love those surveys, but when you do use them, PLEASE:

Do take care to make it possible for us wretched respondents to fill them in on screen and return them via mail or some other 21st century related method. I receive those things in rather great numbers and all to often I get them in PDF format (or something else restricting my ability to just type the answers in), intended to be printed, filled in by hand, and then returned via snail mail or maybe fax... Indeed, most of us used to do it that way back in the Neolithic age, but today you can save all of us (including yourselves) huge amounts of time by simply giving some thought to the setup.

Speaking of setups, I more or less completely fail to see the value in lining up EVERY clause in the standards concerned, asking suppliers you already know to hold certificates of registration to said standards if they comply with them. What is that in aid of, apart from providing opportunities for work by the end of retention time? It is not as if the provided data is actually USED, or anything, after all.

As for the surveys alltogether: It's not as if any management standard actually requires them, is it?

Ok, now I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion.

 

[kgott]

I agree Claes. I get lots of them too but at least they come in 21 century formats like Word.

Given they are only supposed to be pre or re-qualification questionares they have grown into full desktop audits. In safety, continuous improvement seems to be defined as just more of the same.

Your issues supprise me because we Australians tend to regard anything Americian as superior to anything Australian but in safety I have found that America seems to lag behind which I find strange. In recent weeks I completed a questionire for a large bridge building company from Chicago and it came in Word 97??

 

[TPMB4]

Last supplier questionnaire i got i forgot to fill in and send. I got no follow-up email about it so i figure the person sending it wasnt too fussed about a reply. What does that say about the value to that company of that questionnaire? If its worth sending its worth at least chasing up once, surely? If not then why bother sending it?

 

[Marc]

You are, perhaps, expecting

?​

 

[Wes Bucey]

All too often, organizations which send out questionnaires have absolutely no process to do anything other than file the response and tick off a box on a form which says: Questionnaire returned? Yes/no

If your organization does not have someone REALLY reviewing those answers and using other sources to confirm they are valid versus something cobbled together by some old guy like me who knows what answers "should" be, then your organization is wasting time and effort in creating, sending, receiving, and filing them with no value in return.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Your issues supprise me because we Australians tend to regard anything Americian as superior to anything Australian but in safety I have found that America seems to lag behind which I find strange. In recent weeks I completed a questionire for a large bridge building company from Chicago and it came in Word 97??

Actually, the one that prompted me to start this thread did come from a U.S. based customer. It also came in word 97 format (which is approaching extinction here in Sweden), but had still been rendered next to impossible to fill in on screen by "clever" use of some macros and fiddling with document rights.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this: Last week I got a questionnaire asking us if we were, or were planning to become registered to... ISO 9001:2000.

 

[Pelaminoskep]

In my opinion, Word isn't 21st century either, rather 20th century. To survey suppliers effectively and do something useful with responses, you need online surveys, of which the answers generate metadata. Filling it in should be browser based.
An example is using MS SharePoint Enterprise as environment and forms created in something like Infopath. We have a process based on this (with some customized SharePoint code), which is fast and effici?nt. Supplier data is generated from SAP, which is exported into SharePoint. From SP we send browser based Infopath questionnaires to suppliers. They log in, fill in and submit their forms which generate the needed metadata. We receive the forms in SP, judge the response and 'check a box', which activates the metadata for reporting. Quick, lean and meaningful data which is entirely customizable.

Although I must say, there is always a group of suppliers that is entirely allergic to logging into anything and want the pdf version, so they can do it the old fashioned way.

 

[TPMB4]

I once created a form to send to suppliers, but it was a word 2007 document that was free to enter your answers and modify to fit your answers if you needed to. Sent it first to about 5 suppliers and got one reply. Last questionnaire I did. It came up in the management review and it was easy to explain why it went no further. Mind you we work closely with our suppliers so we knew the answers to the questions. I was new to quality and the company and had been told to send out questionnaires because 9001 needed it. I've learnt the error of that through my visiting of the cove.

 

[maaquilino]

We started using questionnaires several years ago at the last place I worked (a global eye care med device/pharma/surgical company in the USA). This was primarily due to a reduction in budget (along with a manager mentality that software validation was not 'that important) so we had less money to go visit suppliers to do an on-site audit and we needed to do supplier audits in order to be compliant. Questionnaires were one way we got some basic information that helped us decide if we needed to do an on-site audit. And one leson learned was that how you craft your questionnaires can make them beneficial...or useless.

If a vendor didn't return the questionnaire, they got a followup call to go over it and fill it out. If they weren't willing to do that, then they weren't going to be one of our vendors. Most complied

As for Word 97, while most companies have gone to at least Word 2007, there are still a few with older versions, and that's usually due to budgetary reasons. It's mind boggling how some companies won't spend the money to upgrade their computer systems and applications until they absolutely have to. They may even have the money to do it, but they just won't do it until a problem forces them to.

 

[Golfman25]

The problem is that fulfillment of a lot of ISO requirement becomes "monkey see, monkey do." What is the easiest way to deal with supplier "development?" Send out a survey and then file it so when the auditor comes in you can show him/her the survey. If you don't have the survey to show the auditor, then you have to actually explain what you do. I have actually had auditors ask, "why don't you do it like everyone else."