|
In this article we will review the ISO 9001 Standard requirements for purchasing evaluation throughout your quality management system as introduced in chapter 7.4 - Purchasing. Very Simple, with no rounds and rounds.
PURCHASING EVALUATION The organization shall determine the criteria to evaluate the supplier's ability to supply goods. The organization shall evaluate and select the suppliers according to their ability to supply goods, appropriate to determined requirements (products or services of course, and this is the last time we would mention that, you should already know by now that services are goods as well!!) A re-evaluation shall be performed according to determined criteria after a period of time.
How well performs your supplier? This is the question! Sometimes he can cause you a real headache; Telling you stories that you have already heard, making excuses, making stupid mistakes, and frankly, you really don't know why you trouble with him at all. You pay a lot of money every year and still… Maybe you are right. Maybe you are wrong. In order to determine if you do have a reason to not like your supplier anymore you must evaluate him. You must evaluate the important parameters regarding to the supplied product.
In more simple words, you are required to determine which parameters are important to you, when evaluating your suppliers. What is important? Whatever has an effect on your products quality:
- The quality of the goods or services
- Delivering on schedules
- Credibility
- Lead time
- Meeting customers' requirements
You name it and then examine whether your supplier perform well or worst.
For example, when your organization uses the services of Transportation Company to deliver its products, the supplier must be evaluated according to defined criteria:
- Availability – Does the supplier is available to perform the transportation whenever it is required or according to prior defined requirements.
- Credibility – Does the goods arrive to their destiny peacefully according to defined requirements.
Another example, if your organization purchases raw materials, you may evaluate the supplier according to:
- Quality of the supplied material – Does the supplied material is of good or poor quality.
- Suitability to the order - whether the supplied material is according to the order,
- Delivery schedules – Does the supplier deliver the material on time. In some organization this parameter is crucial. A whole production line could be found stopped because the supplier was late to deliver according to prior plan. That means money. Your purchased good cost you more than you expected.
- Personal manners - How nice his secretary is when you are calling to order or to complaint, does the employees of the supplier bother to inform you of important information.
- Other parameters – Does the supplier offers other things such as special offers, gift on holidays, sends hallo from now and then and etc. Don’t laugh. That is a serious parameter. I know suppliers that send their customers for vacations… Did your supplier send you lately for a vacation?
Records of the suppliers' evaluation shall be maintained and kept. The evaluation process would be introduced to the records control process according to paragraph 4.2.4 – control of records. Keep the records of evaluation and mention the records on your records control procedure. More about this here, on this article. Although it is not required by the ISO 9001 Standard, you may want to inform your supplier about the results of the evaluation. This information may steer some actions from his side to improve. You may want to view the next web site: Qualitymanualtemplares.com. They propose a pretty good solution for performing and documenting the suppliers' evaluation. The solution is easy to implement and to maintain. Give it a try: Qualitymanualtemplares.com. LIST OF APPROVED SUPPLIERS Next, you are required to add any evaluated supplier to the list of approved suppliers. On the list, you should mention also his grading. Now, there is no specific requirement for a list on the ISO 9001 Standard requirements. The requirement is that any actions arising from the evaluation shall be maintained. "Maintained" means to document. Don't get to philosophic about it. After evaluation you are left with a list of suppliers. Trust us. You shall be required to show it during the audit. A very helpful tip: If you maintain an ERP system or any other system that manages your purchasing orders, and (naturally) your suppliers are documented on the system, well, it is that list. You would only have to define, somewhere, that approved suppliers are documented on your ERP system. Using the status field of your supplier on that system (if you have it, probably do) may assist you with the approval.
How to grade? Well, it is quite simple. Let's assume that your evaluation draws, at the end, a simple grade from 1 to 100. You may determine the next grading:
Final Grade
| Classification
| 80 - 100
| A | 60 -80
| B | 50 - 60
| C | 1 - 50
| D |
You may also determine that your organization is willing to order only from suppliers with B and above classification. Now, your supplier who got the grade 61 on the last evaluation would start to sweat a b it and start making some enquiries about your last complaints. Can you see where it leads?
Last phase to close the loop is the re-evaluation. After you evaluated your supplier and let him know what is on your heart, you should check after some time (defined, of course) whether he has improved his manners by re-evaluation. This is an ISO 9001 Standard requirement.
SUMMARY - The organization shall determine the criteria to evaluate the supplier's ability to supply the goods
- You must evaluate the important parameters regarding to the supplied goods.
- The parameters should regard the quality of the product (your product).
- Records of the suppliers' evaluation shall be maintained and kept.
- The evaluation process would be introduced to the records control process according to paragraph 4.2.4 on the ISO 9001 Standard.
- The evaluation shall arise for every supplier a grade or classification.
- A list of approved suppliers shall be maintained.
- A re-evaluation shall be performed to examine whether the supplier has improved referring his last evaluation.
aaa |
