Service Supplier Rating where Objective Pass/Fail Data is not Available

[Ironcountry]

Does anyone have a method to evaluate suppliers of services where objective pass/fail data is not available? This would include; Test Labs, Consultants, Calibration Labs, etc.

 

[Duke Okes]

Re: Service Supplier Rating

You could create your own pass/fail criteria, or use 3rd party criteria such as accreditation, etc.

 

[Ironcountry]

Re: Service Supplier Rating

I should have been more clear, the intial evaluation is covered but ongoing is much more difficult as there is no pass/fail criteria as in a received product.

 

[harry]

Re: Service Supplier Rating

I should have been more clear, the intial evaluation is covered but ongoing is much more difficult as there is no pass/fail criteria as in a received product.

Consider using 'critical incidents' or 'Exception incident tracking' for re-evaluation. If there are no bad incidents during the period under review, you can consider them as acceptable (still meeting needs or requirements).

 

[red66climb]

Re: Service Supplier Rating

Many companies forget to re-evaluate service providers altogether, but it is required. Whenever licensing or certification is required, you may require that service providers provide evidence that licenses and/or certification is maintained. If 3rd party reports are issued, theese might be shared with the customer.

On-time delivery is applicable for product and services. For example, did the service provider show up on-time? Did they provide a report on-time? Was billing accurate? Was pricing fair? Did you get the bare minimum or did the service provider go above and beyond? How long does it take to place an order? Is it hard to understand communications from the service provider? (i.e. - I just don't understand their report.)

Sometimes you can set objective criteria for evaluating service providers up-front. For example:

1) You hired a consultant to perform internal audits, and asked them to help prevent findings from 2nd and 3rd party auditors by finding them during internal audits. Benchmarking the number of past findings vs. the number of findings in subsequent audits is a potential metric.

2) Pest control suppliers could be evaluated based upon the # of pests observed before and after services were provided for the same month or quarter in the previous year.

3) A company was hired to install a piece of equipment. Did the equipment pass the IQ on the initial attempt? Was installation on-time? Was training provided? Did stakeholders have positive or negative comments?

4) A webhosting service provides a commodity service, but there are lots of metrics that the IT department can use to evaluate the service. How many service disruptions were experience? How much scheduled down-time was experienced? How quickly did the hosting service respond to questions? Were questions resolved during the 1st call?

I also like to select suppliers that have the potential to make companies better. For example, if a client has an internal initiative to implement a Lean Manufacturing or 6-Sigma program, I will suggest suppliers that do this well. Then they can learn from their suppliers--regardless of product or service.

When service providers are difficult to evaluate objectively, try asking a cross-functional team to score the supplier on a scale of 0 to 10. Everyone knows a "0" is not good, but a composite or average score will eliminate some of the bias of certain departments.

 

[arios]

The following can be options to monitor your service suppliers:

a) On time delivery
b) Service (supportive, answers questions, timely resolution to issues)
c) For calibration labs: adequacy of information on calibration service reports
d) Adherence to service agreements, e.g. prices

 

[Ajit Basrur]

Does anyone have a method to evaluate suppliers of services where objective pass/fail data is not available? This would include; Test Labs, Consultants, Calibration Labs, etc.

I agree with previous replies that you could come up with your evaluation criteria. For example -

Test / Calibration Labs - first check if they are certified to ISO 17025. Check their customer base and if they are serving big names, your comfort level increases. Additionally, you can do a system audit of the test lab before using them

Consultants - I would prefer interviewing the consultant and check if he could meet my organization expectations. If the consultant is to be hired for some technical area, assess his expertise by a Subject Matter Expert.

Hope that helps

 

[arios]

Consultants - I would prefer interviewing the consultant and check if he could meet my organization expectations. If the consultant is to be hired for some technical area, assess his expertise by a Subject Matter Expert.

Hope that helps

And to assess the consultant's capabilities, if possible get references, and call his/her clients to determine that what he or she claims can be supported. There have been cases of "consultants" claiming a certain level of expertise and in reality they don't have it, and the result represents a significant cost for the companies (e.g. failed audits).