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 in ZFlow
ZFlow provides a flexible supplier performance assessment framework that can be used to qualitatively and quantitatively assess supplier performance along multiple facets.
Once the performance assessment facets are defined the supplier assessment process in ZFlow generates all the assessment survey elements and assigns them to appropriate stakeholders for input.
Stakeholders can give input for assessment elements easily as part of the workflow. The assessment input can be qualitative as well as quantitative.
Once all the stakeholders provide input for the supplier assessment elements the process generates an overall report that can be used for evaluating opportunities for supplier development.
Supplier Development Programs using A3 Report
A3 Report is one of the most effective ways to implement ongoing supplier development programs. 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 development programs.
Collaborative A3 Report
A3 Report Workflow