Sourcing from small suppliers can offer many benefits, such as lower costs, faster delivery, and more flexibility. However, it also comes with some challenges, such as ensuring quality, reliability, and compliance. How can you overcome these challenges and source from small suppliers with confidence? Here are some tips to help you.
Before you start looking for small suppliers, you need to have a clear idea of what you expect from them in terms of quality. This includes the specifications, standards, and certifications that your products or services need to meet. You also need to communicate these requirements to the potential suppliers and verify that they can meet them. You can do this by asking for samples, references, or audits.
Buyers should work with product development and other prescribers in order to review the specifications. For example, they must ask: Is there a way to express the need functionally instead of technically? How are the specifications and the tolerances defined? As long as the small supplier is certified ISO, there is no reason why the level of quality would be lower than other players. However, the specifications must make sense and be attainable. It’s common to see tolerances that are too strict and that would lead to repeated waivers.
The requirements and performance expectation (e.g. ppm, field performance, cost of non-quality, etc) shall be clear and documented in a contract. The buyer needs to ensure the supplier has a Quality Management System to be aligned and sustain the requirements. A strong selection and qualification process is vital to onboard good suppliers, as well as a strong performance measurement process is vital to keep suppliers performing as expected.
Once you have selected a small supplier that meets your quality requirements, you need to formalize the agreement and set the expectations for both parties. A quality agreement is a document that defines the roles and responsibilities of the supplier and the buyer, the quality criteria and metrics, the inspection and testing methods, the corrective and preventive actions, and the dispute resolution process. A quality agreement can help you avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, and quality issues later on.
After you have established a quality agreement with your small supplier, you need to monitor and measure their quality performance regularly. This means that you need to collect and analyze data on the quality indicators that you agreed on, such as defect rates, customer satisfaction, or delivery times. You also need to provide feedback and recognition to the supplier and address any issues or deviations promptly. You can use tools such as dashboards, scorecards, or reports to track and evaluate quality performance.
One of the best ways to ensure quality when sourcing from small suppliers is to build a long-term relationship with them. This means that you need to treat them as partners, not just vendors, and invest in their development and improvement. You can do this by providing them with training, resources, or incentives to enhance their quality capabilities and processes. You can also involve them in your innovation and product development initiatives and share best practices and insights. By building a long-term relationship, you can foster trust, loyalty, and collaboration with your small supplier and improve your quality outcomes.
Finally, you need to review and revise your sourcing strategy periodically to ensure that it is still aligned with your quality goals and needs. You need to assess the performance and value of your small suppliers and identify any gaps or opportunities for improvement. You also need to consider any changes in the market, customer expectations, or regulations that may affect your quality requirements or standards. You can use tools such as SWOT analysis, benchmarking, or surveys to evaluate your sourcing strategy and make adjustments as needed.
In the world of sourcing, ensuring quality from small suppliers is paramount. Mindset: They should be driven by a genuine desire to grow, with a focus on excellence rather than mere profit. Long-Term Commitment: Look for suppliers willing to build a lasting relationship. Once these criteria are met, we follow this process: Collaboration: Sit with vendor, in person or virtually, and engage the quality team. Discuss critical dimensions outlined in the drawings. Initial Approval: Require the vendor to get the first 10 components approved everytime. Dimensional Flexibility: Allow a 10% margin on the dimensions, and provide revised drawings to accommodate minor deviations. Thorough Inspection: Inspect around 20% of the components rigorously.
The guarantee of quality and conformity of a product is not necessarily linked to the size of the company that manufactures it. In fact, the size of a company does not systematically determine its ability to produce goods that comply with standards and are of superior quality. Small companies can implement rigorous quality control processes, while large companies may sometimes encounter challenges related to managing quality on a large scale. Thus, the guarantee of quality and conformity depends more on the internal practices and processes implemented by the company, rather than its size.