Grading Vendors for ISO Compliance
Grading your suppliers is a critical element of complying with standard quality auditing bodies, especially for ISO 9001 and ISO 13485. Part of the supplier management requirements include an approved vendor list, on-time delivery metrics, and quality marks for failed incoming inspections. If you have disparate systems for your business - for example, a QMS that’s not aligned with your ERP or inventory management system - these hefty amounts of data are difficult to measure.
Even if you are not ISO certified, vendor grading is crucial for lean operations and efficient supply chain management. Poor vendors cost you a lot of money. There are multiple metrics to evaluate when grading your vendors. You need to look at their overall performance on shipments, quality of goods, pricing, and reliability. Knowing how reliable the vendors are with on-time shipments and how committed they are to delivering quality materials are especially important factors, as late or defective products can delay your production while you wait for replacements to arrive.
As an all-in-one, out-of-the-box solution, Cetec ERP streamlines the data capture process and saves your quality team hours of gathering, compiling, and reporting on this data. Here are a few of the places you can find this information in Cetec:
1) On-time deliveries: use the Vendor Performance Report under Purchasing>Vendors>Vendor Performance. This gives a list of all receipts in a desired date range (and per vendor), and compares the actual date of receipt to the expected/promised delivery date (dock date) from the PO line.
2) Approved vendors: The Approved Vendor List can be sorted by inactive and active vendors. Alternatively, you can create a searchable “Approved” bonus column on the “Vendor” object, which would let you leverage the Vendor list as the report.
3) Vendor Quality: use the NCR list with type set to Vendor/Supplier. You can also use the Incoming Inspections list. These will allow you to report on quality issues with vendors.
4) Quality and delivery performance per vendor: you can see a dashboard per vendor showing the delivery dates, incoming inspections, and more. This gives a one-stop view for any specific vendor. Access this screen by going to the vendor record, and clicking “Performance” on the left hand navigation.
It’s evident that vendor grading plays a pivotal role in streamlining operations and optimizing supply chain management, even in the absence of ISO certification. The impact of subpar vendors on your bottom line cannot be overstated. Assessing vendors across various metrics, from shipment performance to product quality, pricing, and reliability, contributes significantly to your operational efficiency. Delayed or defective shipments can disrupt your production process, necessitating replacements and incurring additional costs. Prioritizing vendor evaluation is essential for maintaining a resilient and efficient supply chain ecosystem.