Continuous Improvement Training Program
A Continuous Improvement Program
Featuring 8-Training Modules by Bill Gaw

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Lean Manufacturing Training Program
Lean Manufacturing Simulation Game 

Evaluate and Select Suppliers

Suppliers must be evaluated for inclusion in the supplier partnership program. The supplier questionnaire and site survey are excellent tools for evaluating suppliers.
The supplier questionnaire requests business information in the following business areas:

• Demographics
— Management
— Facilities
— Financial information

• Business area capabilities
— Sales administration
— Purchasing
— Receiving/receiving inspection
— Manufacturing operations
— Engineering and product data management
— Process control
— Quality management
— Customer returns/field failures
— Customer service.

The capabilities questionnaire portion of the survey typi­cally consists of questions which can be answered "yes" or "no."

Members of a cross-functional team can visit a prospective partner's site to meet management and observe production processes and process controls. A written site survey audit is generally completed during or shortly after the visit to the supplier.

Cross-functional teams can be used to effectively evaluate and select supplier partners. A cross-functional team is often created for each commodity category. Key responsibilities of each team include:

• Recommending criteria for evaluating suppliers
• Establishing cost reduction targets
• Reviewing proposals from suppliers
• Evaluating and selecting partners.

The cross-functional team should recommend criteria for evaluating suppliers. Major categories of criteria typically include quality, delivery, cost, customer service, and sup­plier viability and stability. Each of these categories should be weighted based on importance to your organization. A scoring methodology should be created for supplier evalu­ation.

Although scoring suppliers always involves a certain de­gree of qualitative assessment, a number of tools can be used to assure a fair review. These tools could include:

• Supplier survey responses
• Annual reports and Dun and Bradstreet ratings
• Reference checks of suppliers' customers
• Results of the supplier site survey (if a site survey was conducted).

To be Continued