Purchasing Process - Criteria for Evaluation

[Icy Mountain]

During TS Pre-Audit we generated a finding for a lack of supplier re-evaluation.

7.4.1 Purchasing Process ..."Criteria for selection, evaluation, and re-evaluation shall be established."

We state the criteria for selection and evaluation in our manual. That is, a list of the desirable qualities that we look for in a supplier and how well and how many the supplier does. We state that suppliers are re-evaluated annually at the first Management Review.

Here's why we got dinged: we don't state the frequency of re-evaluation or what criteria suppliers are re-evaluated against. Now obviously, the frequency is annually, it's a review of the approved supplier list, and their performance in Management Review.

I read the criteria for re-evaluation to mean: what would trigger a re-evaluation. If my supplier remains registered to ISO9001, sends me no defects, delivers 100% on time, why would I go back and re-evaluate them against the original criteria? If they don't, intuitively, I would re-evaluate them against the original criteria.

The auditor reads: define a frequency (at least annually), a list of things to re-evaluate, and go back and do the whole thing over for every supplier, every year. That's a waste in my book.

What gives? Where do they get this stuff?

 

[D.Scott]

We use a defined Vendor Rating System as our continuing re-evaluation. We base our evaluation on quarterly evaluation of the supplier's on-time delivery, quality issues, continuing QMS certification, communication, cooperation and price. Each category is scored numerically, some with heavier weighting than others, and a total score is determined with a "scorecard" being sent to the supplier. Those falling below a specified "score" are given to the purchasing manager for re-evaluation. Sometimes an 8-D is requested to correct problems and other times an audit or visit is arranged. This system has so far satisfied our auditors.

Dave

 

[Icy Mountain]

DS,
That's basically what we are doing. Constantly monitor your suppliers for OTD, defects, whatever is important. As long as they maintain their metric you don't need to re-evaluate. Therefore, the criteria for re-evaluation is not a list of things to re-evaluate but rather a metric that triggers ANOTHER (re) evaluation.
-Icy.