In this short 2 page-document available at ISM and written by S. Gordon (Emptoris) you be reminded the 6 major benefits coming from supplier evaluation:
- Increase performance visibility,
- Uncover and remove hidden waste and cost drivers in the supply chain,
- Leverage the supply base,
- Align customer and supplier business practices,
- Mitigate risk,
- Improve supplier performance,
…and the barriers/challenges of the 5 methods you can use to do so:
- Questionnaires,
- Scorecards,
- Site visits
- Sector standards certification
- Supplier evaluation softwate
I am the author of the ISM paper that you referenced. For those readers who are looking for more detailed information on supplier evaluation, I have a book coming out by the end of 2007 called “Supplier Evaluation and Performance Excellence: A Guide to Meaningful Metrics and Successful Results”, published by J. Ross Publishing. This book is a practical how-to guide to the business process of developing a supplier performance management and improvement process that gets real results. In the meantime, if readers want more information than the ISM abstract, they can read the article that I wrote for the August 2005 issue of Quality Progress, “Seven Steps to Measure Supplier Performance”.