Do we need to conduct Vendor (Supplier) Evaluation?

[Noah1]

Hi Jane B,

I am interested to know wherabouts in the standard it stipulates that you need to audit your suppliers?

Noah

 

[JaneB]

Hi Jane B,

I am interested to know wherabouts in the standard it stipulates that you need to audit your suppliers?

Noah

It doesn't. There is no requirement to audit suppliers.
Regardless of this, it's mandatory to monitor and evaluate them.
The requirements are mostly in cl. 7.4 (Purchasing); - re. evaluation, the relevant quote is:

The organization shall evaluate and select suppliers based on their ability to supply product in accordance with the organization's requirements. Criteria for selection, evaluation and re-evaluation shall be established.
Records of the results of evaluations and any necessary actions arising from the evaluation shall be maintained
(see 4.2.4).

Some companies do choose to audit suppliers as one way of evaluating/monitoring, but not all do (it's labour and time intensive for a start! and impractical/too expensive if they're remote) and it definitely isn't either required nor the only way.

 

[jonref]

Hello Everyone. If the following questions has been discussed in other threads, kindly provide me a link, it will help a lot.

1. How important is Purchasing Section/Dept in a company?
2. What will happen if it is removed from the Business System? (that is, each department in the company will canvass & purchase its own requirements)
3. regardless of who will purchase what, would there be a single or multiple set of Selection and Evaluation Criteria?

Again, TIA for your inputs.

 

[Alpine]

1. Purchasing is indeed very important.
2. Remove Purchasing and I think the only result will be chaos. Our purchasing team have the relationships with suppliers and ensure key criteria are met. If you remove them, suppliers would have multiple contact people from the one organisation and it would be most inefficient
3. Have one set of key criteria, which can be modified dependent on what is purchased.

 

[somashekar]

1. How important is Purchasing Section/Dept in a company?
The whole business system (company) and hence the QMS is built over the quality management principles, of which one of them is "Mutually beneficial supplier relationship"
2. What will happen if it is removed from the Business System? (that is, each department in the company will canvass & purchase its own requirements)
You are still not removing it as the departments in the company will be purchasing. All departments together makes your business system
3. regardless of who will purchase what, would there be a single or multiple set of Selection and Evaluation Criteria?
Criteria shall be established in accordance with the organization's requirement. Here again department criteria will align with the organization criteria and these are never single, but can be so. The Criteria(s) depends on the organization's requirements

 

[John Broomfield]

Hello Everyone. If the following questions has been discussed in other threads, kindly provide me a link, it will help a lot.

1. How important is Purchasing Section/Dept in a company?
2. What will happen if it is removed from the Business System? (that is, each department in the company will canvass & purchase its own requirements)
3. regardless of who will purchase what, would there be a single or multiple set of Selection and Evaluation Criteria?

Again, TIA for your inputs.

jonref,

You do not say if your organization designs its products and includes suppliers in the design process.

1. The purchasing process is more important than the department, after all your management system is process-based not department-based.
2. Removal of the department may though also remove the investment in the competencies needed to ensure suppliers help enable your organization's future success.
3. Your management system should also help suppliers to understand and fulfill requirements; this starts with the supplier selection criteria evolving fast enough to keep your organization competetitive.

I wish you and your colleagues well in their assessment of the opportunities and risks associated with this decision.

John

 

[jonref]

The organization is a distributor of medical equipment. The negotiation for price, etc. is handled by a Product Manager (Sales) for specific product line e.g. Imaging systems. The role of the Purchasing Dept(under Finance Division) is to document the placement of order and fulfill shipping requirements. I don't have much knowledge of the Supply Chain Management at the moment but I was suggesting that Purchasing be placed back to Logistics Department so they can have full control from order processing through warehousing. In the proposed process, trade items will be procured by Sales while non-trade items, by the department which requires them. The new process came up when the purchaser(also a finance staff) failed to PO the Customer's order on time. Whoever came up with the solution of shortening the document flow must be convinced that "chaos" is on its way. Would anyone agree on this new process? do you have any suggestion? apologies for this as i am assuming a vacated position and still finding my way through a mess..

 

[John Broomfield]

The organization is a distributor of medical equipment. The negotiation for price, etc. is handled by a Product Manager (Sales) for specific product line e.g. Imaging systems. The role of the Purchasing Dept(under Finance Division) is to document the placement of order and fulfill shipping requirements. I don't have much knowledge of the Supply Chain Management at the moment but I was suggesting that Purchasing be placed back to Logistics Department so they can have full control from order processing through warehousing. In the proposed process, trade items will be procured by Sales while non-trade items, by the department which requires them. The new process came up when the purchaser(also a finance staff) failed to PO the Customer's order on time. Whoever came up with the solution of shortening the document flow must be convinced that "chaos" is on its way. Would anyone agree on this new process? do you have any suggestion? apologies for this as i am assuming a vacated position and still finding my way through a mess..

jonref,

Tactically your instincts seem right to me.

Logistics should have end to end responsibility for the success of the purchasing process.

But who should be responsible for developing suppliers and for learning from them so your organization can foster future customer success?

You may be able to address this strategic issue by cross-company or supply chain development of supplier re-selection criteria.

John