Shaun - you say your customers have mandated TS? Do you mean they have mandated registration or have they mandated compliance? If they are mandating registration, ask them why. There is no requirement for a tier 2 or below to be registered. We have had a couple of our customers who have stated registration is mandatory but have since changed that to "comply with". The requirement to be registered is usually imposed by someone who doesn't really understand the standard. This gets us to the point of "The customer is always right", or at least they might think so.
I used to be one of those believers who bowed to the pressure of "if the customer says you have to do it, then you have to do it". I have, over the years questioned this philosophy. We have some fantastic customers. Some, are very large companies supplying the big 3 and some are very small companies just trying to fit into the food trough. Our customers don't normally demand things from us. If they need something, they discuss it with us and if it's beneficial and practical, we try to work it out with them. The customer / supplier relationship has been misused and abused far too long to survive under the old "do it because I say so" mentality. Now, if the relationship isn't a partnership, it is a ship heading for the rocks.
Let's, just for discussion, say one of our customers makes a demand that we can't live with. Do we have the right to say no? Of course we do. First, we had better look at the possible worst case scenario and determine if the battle is worth it. Let's say the customer wanted a 50% discount and we can't take that loss so we do say "no".
That now leaves the customer with the next choice. What does he do about it? He can certainly take away the business which is probably his first thought and the stand-by of the old philosophy. The trouble with that, in the real world, is he may be throwing away 50 years of excellent quality, delivery and business relationship over it. He will now have to resource with an unknown and may not be able to match the price he is getting now. In those terms, he has to ask "is this battle worth it?".
Sure this scenario is a bit far-fetched but it illustrates the point that customer / supplier relationships need to be a two way street. Think of the sequence and choices if it was the supplier who demanded a 50% increase.
Customers today are realizing that although there is benefit in the requirement of a QMS, there is very little advantage in trying to micro-manage their suppliers. They have recognized the benefit of establishing good working partnerships with their supply chain. They look at the results of their purchasing process and draw their conclusions from that. If their supplier is easy to work with, gives them quality product, on time and at a reasonable price, they recognize them as a good supplier. If they are always late and have poor quality, the customer doesn't care what certificate is hanging on the wall - they have a poor supplier.
The point here is, the QMS makes no difference. It's the relationship with the supplier that really counts. In all honesty, it doesn't matter if the supplier doesn't even have a QMS as long as the end result satisfies the needs of the customer. The customer has to ensure the quality before passing it up the supply chain anyway. Sure, the standard says the supplier has to have at least ISO 9001 but that's only because the registrars have forced it into the system as a revenue source.
I agree with you that it is time we unite. More suppliers need to look at the attempts to micro-manage by their customers. I will bet we have 200 "supplier manuals" sitting in my office that demand some really wild things. I have others from our customers that are straight-forward and give us a lot of good information (the intent of a good supplier manual). I read through the wild "demands" and usually send back a letter saying we got the manual but take exception to a number of the requirements and will not agree to supply them under those terms. Some of them may cross us off their supplier list but in the long run we come out ahead. It is not surprising that most of these companies buy from us anyway because we are their best option. They usually make a statement like they are only buying from us temporarily and will be looking to re-source.
We may someday lose a good customer or a big sale, but I doubt it. Good customers and "big sale" customers understand the customer is not always right. They understand their suppliers have to be allowed to run their business and make a profit so they can keep satisfying them as a customer. Even if the worst happened and we did lose something big, it could prove cheaper than bowing to every demand. Sometimes, when the demand makes no sense, we have to learn to JUST SAY NO.
Dave
], eventually you'll find someone in the organization with a grain of common sense who will listen to and agree to reason.
