I found those practices – detailed in an article published by www.metricstream.com , a company which can help you managing your suppliers closer and more efficiently – pragmatic and essential to my point of view. On the other hand, they definitely connect to Green Procurement as they support an effective supplier performance control. That’s the double-reason they are worth a post. Here they are:
- Measuring & tracking cost of poor supplier quality
- Costs recovery
- Supplier Audit
- Supplier ScoreCard
- Closed loop corrective actions
- Engaging Suppliers in quality systems
Below are the key excerpts of the article you can read in full here:
Why Supplier Quality is critical?
With companies outsourcing their manufacturing to strategic partners across the globe, the supply chains have become very long. Many consumer products are manufactured in Mexico or the Far East and then shipped to North American markets using multiple logistics providers via ocean, air and trucks. It can take weeks for a finished product to reach the store shelves from a supplier in the Far East. In addition, many of these manufacturers have streamlined their supply chain and implemented lean inventory techniques. As a result, any issue in supplier quality can quickly result in stock outs.Companies that sell industrial products need to preserve their preferred supplier status to continue to be considered for future business. As a result they are under pressure to ensure that their products continue to meet or exceed acceptable PPM and Corrective Action thresholds set by their customers. Hence managing their own supplier’s quality is very high on the agenda for these companies.
The following best practices enable these companies to improve their own quality by improving their supplier’s product and delivery quality.
Best Practice #1: Measuring & tracking cost of poor supplier quality
Most organizations do not track and measure the cost of poor supplier quality (COPQ) attributed to their suppliers. Such COPQ may add up to over 10% of the organization’s revenue. The following should be taken into account to calculate the actual COPQ.
- Scrap, rework, sorting and processing costs due to poor quality
- MRB inventory and processing costs due to inspection failure
- Line shutdown attributed to poor quality
- Using equipment that is capacity constrained for rework due to poor quality, reducing the overall utilization of the production line
- Freight costs due to expedited shipment to customers/downstream plants
- Warranty expenses due to poor quality
- Recall expenses due to poor quality of products shipped to customers
Best Practice #2: Cost recovery
As we discussed above, the total COPQ is equal to the COPQ of OEM plus inherited COPQ of suppliers. As a result, companies need to proactively work with their suppliers to improve their quality, so that they can reduce their own COPQ. Hence a cost-recovery system, where suppliers are charged back for providing poor quality of components, is an effective way to introduce business discipline and accountability into the supply chain.If a company institutes a quality management system to aggregate such costs and use it for charge-backs, not only would they be able to fully recover the costs of poor quality from their suppliers, they would be able to institute a discipline that forces the suppliers to quickly improve their quality of products shipped.
Please click on image for enhanced version
Best Practice #3: Supplier Audit
Supplier Audits are one of the best ways to ensure that supplier is following the processes and procedures that you agreed to during the selection processes. The supplier audit identifies non-conformances in manufacturing process, shipment process, engineering change process, invoicing process and quality process at the supplier. After the audit, the supplier and manufacturer jointly identify corrective actions which must be implemented by the supplier within an agreed-upon timeframe. A future audit ensures that these corrective actions have been successfully implemented.In our research, over 50% of the manufacturers do not follow the best practices in audit, while engaging with their suppliers. The following picture shows the best practices process for internal auditing.
Please click on image for enhanced version
Best Practice #4: Supplier Scorecard
Supplier Scorecards are one of the best techniques in using facts to rank the supplier’s relative performance within the supply base and tracking improvement in supplier’s quality over time. Scorecards also provide a data point into any future business negotiations. Following are the key operational metrics that leading manufacturers track in their supplier scorecard:
- PPM of Supplier Components
- # of Corrective Actions Last Quarter
- Average Response and Resolution time for Corrective actions
- # RMAs Processed per month
- MRB Inventory Levels
- # of Rework Hours due to Supplier Components
- % of Actual COPQ Recovered from Suppliers
- # of Customer Complaints on Product Quality
- Warranty Reserves
- Relative ranking of supplier
- Performance against benchmark
Best Practice #5: Closed Loop Corrective Action
Systematic reductions in the Cost of Poor quality can be attained by implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) that provides an integrated and closed loop corrective action process. In a manufacturing organization, when deviations, nonconformance, out of specifications, quality incidents or customer complaints occur, corrective and preventive actions need to be initiated to remedy the problems.Once a quality problem has been identified, the first step is to initiate an investigation and to properly identify the root cause of the problem. After the root cause has been identified, Corrective Action (CAPA) items are created and routed for approval. When approved, appropriate changes are implemented in the environment and then the CAPA is closed out. These changes may include amendments to a documented procedure, upgrading the skill set of an employee through a training and certification process, or recalibrating the manufacturing equipment. In addition, the system may capture COPQ associated with that non-conformance and use that information to initiate and complete a cost recovery process with a supplier.
Please click on image for enhanced version
Best Practice #6: Engaging Suppliers in quality systems
It is critical for manufacturers to engage suppliers in all aspects of their quality management system, so that the supply-base is fully integrated into the QMS being rolled out. Key requirements include:
- Supplier should be able to provide quality-related data to the manufacturer without having to deploy a mandated quality management system within their environment. This can be achieved by feeding information from supplier’s quality system into manufacturer’s quality system (for larger suppliers or ones sharing their production line with multiple customers) or getting the supplier to use a manufacturer’s web-based quality management system (for smaller suppliers or ones with dedicated lines for a customer). A web-based quality management system dramatically reduces the cost of ownership for a supplier by providing the right information to a key customer without having to deploy software in-house.
- Manufacturer should be able to get every relevant stakeholder within the supply base to use the quality system without having to train every casual user. Emerging capability includes a scenario where an application form is embedded within an email delivered by the system to the casual user at a supplier. When the user opens an email, they hit reply, enter the data in the embedded form and hit send. The data in the form is processed by the system as if it came from the screen. As a result the user does not need to learn to navigate the quality application, yet can participate in the quality system.
By deploying these best practices, manufacturers can dramatically improve their supplier quality and achieve their own business objectives. Such practices have been implemented by world-class manufacturers using enterprise quality management software. We invite you to take a look at MetricStream’s software suite and see how our solution can help you deploy such practices within your environment.
About MetricStream
MetricStream allows its customers to improve supplier quality through its integrated and comprehensive quality management solution. Market leaders in industries as diverse as Automotive, High Technology, Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical and Food Services use the company’s solution. Developed from the ground up using web architecture, MetricStream provides an integrated set of the following modules to drive closed loop corrective actions and manage supplier quality
- Audit Management
- Inspection Management
- Non-Conformance Management
- CAPA
- Change Control
- Document Management
- Training Management
- Equipment Management
- Cost Recovery
- Supplier Scorecard
- Analytics/dashboards
MetricStream is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California and can be reached at www.metricstream.com
No Responses