ISO 9001 Clause 7.4 Purchasing, Evaluation and Re-Evaluation - Consulting Company

[Sam4Quality]

Originally Posted by Iman Attarzadeh

We do purchase things like IT equipments & furniture and from the posts i understood that they need to be evaluated in terms of pricing, maybe delivery, support and quality of product.

One more thing to clarify is that we sometimes purchase software licenses say for Telelogic, which is of of our main partners for developing company processes and flows. This license is part of our deliverables to clients. any need to evaluated Telelogic? or partners are not essential to be evaluated?

Even if they are business partners, they are still suppliers (in this case) of their product/service to you. Especially, product/service that directly affects the quality of your final product/service delivered to the customer. Hence, they need to be evaluated atleast once before you agree to sign the partnership contract with them, which should be renewable. Thereafter, IMO, the requirement to re-evaulate them may arise due to noticeable deterioration in product/service provision, else no.
P.S: I would call business partners as those who are equally responsible for the final product delivered to the customer and/or for the profit/loss of the venture they have mutually entered into.

While I totally understand scenarios where you have certain 'reserved category suppliers' - those who provide unique high quality products not available (or easily available) with others, like in your case - I always recommend to look for other competent suppliers who provide the kind of product/service you are looking for. This does not mean kicking out the existing supplier/partner; just planning for the worst case scenario!

I hope this helps.

Ciao.

 

[Big Jim]

I think you should treat them like a supplier. If you treat them as business partners you may need to expand your scope of registration and open yourself up to a bunch of stuff you don't need to.

 

[JaneB]

Hence, they need to be evaluated atleast once before you agree to sign the partnership contract with them, which should be renewable.

Good point. Any organisation with even the minimum of commercial sense would of course be expected to do this as part of their due diligence before entering into such an arrangement in the first place.

 

[Iman Attarzadeh]

Thank you all.
So I will establish a procedure and a method to evaluate our partners prior to signing contracts.

Now another question may raise is that, we have already signed contracts with these partners long time back and we didn't evaluate them! and I think it would be late to evaluate them now...
If we don't carry any records in this regards, would it be a NC?

 

[Bilijaf]

I had a similar case with one of the clients who is a training institut in the military. They are forced to purchase all required materials from another another authority in the military. The evaluation could not be applicable and they claimed for exclusion. Is that way right?

 

[Sam4Quality]

Originally Posted by Iman Attarzadeh

Thank you all.
So I will establish a procedure and a method to evaluate our partners prior to signing contracts.

Now another question may raise is that, we have already signed contracts with these partners long time back and we didn't evaluate them! and I think it would be late to evaluate them now...
If we don't carry any records in this regards, would it be a NC?

Iman, can you give me a solid reason for which you prefer to call them partners. I mean I have nothing against the term, its a great one to use; I just want to know the ingredients of this partnership with Telelogic, from whom you occasionally purchase software.

Evaluate them now, you are infact giving reasons to evaluate them NOW! Let the signed contract be, evaluate them in a fair manner to cross-verify whether they are supplying product that conforms to your requirements. I am not pointing towards any nonconformance against supplying conforming product, but this will give you reason to be sure that you are still dealing with the most appropriate supplier/partner and getting product that CONFORMS to clients requirements. The results of this, discussed with your partner, might provide them motive to improve in the long run. Maybe not. But they definitely got the idea within.

Since you have "already signed contracts with these partners long time back", and haven't renewed since, it seems you have an open contract with them?

Ciao.