Supplier Development is often a strategic choice that many leading organizations make so that suppliers are able to perform at the level needed for product and operational excellence.
You can get a good idea on the importance industry leaders place on Supplier Development from the following 2 articles
- Supplier Development at Honda, Toyota and Nissan
- Building Deep Supplier Relationships – Jeff Liker and Thomas Choi – Harvard Business Review
Many leading organizations incorporate supplier development as a continuous improvement program focused on the supply chain. Supplier development as a continuous improvement program is often dependent of periodic Supplier Performance Assessment.
There is No One-size-fits-all Supplier Performance Assessment
Based on our experience we believe that there is no one-size-fits-all supplier performance assessment strategy. The scope and depth of Supplier performance assessment can depend upon the type of supplier relationship and in some cases even type of components/services the supplier provides.
Flexible Supplier Performance Assessment Framework
ZFlow provides a flexible supplier performance assessment framework that can be used for Supplier Performance Assessment of Different types of Suppliers.
The Supplier Performance Assessment Framework provides a flexible approach for supporting assessment areas, weights and facets based on the type of Suppliers.
Supplier Performance Assessment Workflow
Supplier Performance Assessment Workflow is designed to support collaborative performance assessment by cross-functional teams within an organization. It it likely that inputs for different areas and facets of the Supplier Performance Assessment are best provided by cross-functional team members (from Engineering, Supply Chain, Test Engineering, Purchasing..) that actually work with the Supplier. The Supplier Performance Assessment Workflow in ZFlow is designed so that Supplier Development lead for the supplier (can be from Sourcing, responsible Buyer, Commodity Manager) selects the right people to provide assessment for different areas and facets.
Assessment input is provided by cross-functional team members using a simple survey like input as shown below
Once cross-functional team members provide input for the supplier assessment facets the workflow generates an overall scorecard that can be used for evaluating opportunities for supplier development.
Incorporating Supplier Performance Assessment into Performance Reports
The results that come out of Supplier Performance Assessment can be incorporated into Performance Reports that shared with Suppliers in the ZFlow Supplier Portal.
Supplier Improvement Actions as A3 Report Workflows
A3 Report is one of the most effective ways to implement Supplier Improvement Actions that come out of Performance Assessments. We highly recommend this article on A3 Report for more information on A3 Report.
ZFlow provides a collaborative A3 Report that can be used to implement supplier improvement actions.
Collaborative A3 Report
A3 Report Workflow
