Customer Audit needs to see External Supplier Management Procedure

[SingTony]

So here's the deal...

I have had a customer audit (TW Tier 1 ODM) and they are gating my approval as I am missing any documentation that they are happy with (although i am ISO 9001:2008 certified) in regards to management of second and tertiary vendors... I am a one man band Quality department that has a very lean system!!!!...

HELP (examples) needed if possible...

 

[qusys]

So here's the deal...

I have had a customer audit (TW Tier 1 ODM) and they are gating my approval as I am missing any documentation that they are happy with (although i am ISO 9001:2008 certified) in regards to management of second and tertiary vendors... I am a one man band Quality department that has a very lean system!!!!...

HELP (examples) needed if possible...

Do not work only for having a piece of paper to make your customer happy.
Put a process in place , also supported by your customer, to find the best solution for this searching for its help. However, it seems strange
to me that you do not have any documentation for this. Purchasing should have , for example. We can also say that ISO 9001 does not ask to have this procedure. We could also demonstrate to have a process in place, also not documented, but that is effective, showing records and evidences of good practice, showing KPI for this process.Pls, give us more detail if this did not help

 

[JaneB]

So here's the deal...

I have had a customer audit (TW Tier 1 ODM) and they are gating my approval as I am missing any documentation that they are happy with (although i am ISO 9001:2008 certified) in regards to management of second and tertiary vendors... I am a one man band Quality department that has a very lean system!!!!...

HELP (examples) needed if possible...

Could you provide a bit more info, please? For example:

• How do you manage your vendors/suppliers now? Are these measures proving satisfactory? (and what factual evidence do you have of this?)
• Do you have written criteria for how you select & monitor them (per 9001)?
• Do you have scheduled, regular reviews of them against said criteria, and documented results of these? When was the last one? When's the next one due?
• Which suppliers are most important (or represent the highest risk)? Do you do anything else here to mitigate the risk?
• Can you answer a question such as: Have you had any quality/supply problems over the last 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? Which supplier/vendor was involved? What did you do about it? Has it improved things? Are there records to show all this per your NC/corrective/PA action procedure(or whatever called)?
  

 

[Raffy]

Hi JaneB,
Your follow-up questions is an Opener in our part that I need to work on the following weeks ahead...
Thank you so much for those questions.
Best regards,
Raffy

 

[somashekar]

So here's the deal...

I have had a customer audit (TW Tier 1 ODM) and they are gating my approval as I am missing any documentation that they are happy with (although i am ISO 9001:2008 certified) in regards to management of second and tertiary vendors... I am a one man band Quality department that has a very lean system!!!!...

HELP (examples) needed if possible...

Hello Tony, Welcome to the Cove.
Consider the "Supply Chain Visibility" as a key word in your business process. Perhaps what your customer is looking to see is just this. None of us work in isolation and while your customer asks for this External Supplier Management Procedure , you have all rights to get same from your external suppliers, and keep it visible, be it quality issues, delivery issues, change management, price movements, agreements, forecasts, sustainability issues, ..... and many more.

 

[JaneB]

Consider the "Supply Chain Visibility" as a key word in your business process.

Sorry but the perfectionist (pedant?) in me cannot refrain from pointing out that 'supply chain visibility' is definintely not 'a word', in fact it's three words and should be referred to as a term or a phrase.

The practical side of me says it isn't fully clear from this sentence what you are actually advising someone to do.

 

[somashekar]

Sorry but the perfectionist (pedant?) in me cannot refrain from pointing out that 'supply chain visibility' is definintely not 'a word', in fact it's three words and should be referred to as a term or a phrase.

English ... I am still learning it.

The practical side of me says it isn't fully clear from this sentence what you are actually advising someone to do.

in regards to management of second and tertiary vendors... When the OP says this, he is in a chain (supply chain) and the higher end of the chain (his customer) would like to know not only how good and strong the immediate link is, but also about his assessment and control of the links down the chain.
Supply chain visibility is just about all that can encompass into the External Supplier Management Procedure (Title of this thread)
My post just mentioned about some aspects that an organization can consider in the External Supplier Management Procedure, apart from just the outsourced process control.

I am a one man band Quality department that has a very lean system!!!!...

The OP says this and my response was some food for thought to see what his customer may be expecting.

 

[SingTony]

Hello Tony, Welcome to the Cove.
Consider the "Supply Chain Visibility" as a key word in your business process. Perhaps what your customer is looking to see is just this. None of us work in isolation and while your customer asks for this External Supplier Management Procedure , you have all rights to get same from your external suppliers, and keep it visible, be it quality issues, delivery issues, change management, price movements, agreements, forecasts, sustainability issues, ..... and many more.

many thx Somashekar... this is more in line with what they are requiring...

I have a number of terms that they have been using recently (in their comms with me) which I have now included within my documentation, and lo and behold... everything is good. This is thh experience that I am building up with *Big* TW/CN ODM's, they have a list of English terminologies which they expect to see in documentation and without it will not 'pass you'.

So the issue here, in this 'global marketplace' is one of terminology... and the way I have gotten around this is mimicry, or in good old fashioned quality terminology...

Recognising Customer requirements and translating those requirements into the continual/continuous (the debate continues) improvement of the Quality Management System..

Thanks to all that gave me some indicators into solving this...