Supplier performance drives a significant portion of a manufacturing company’s success. As the starting point of a company’s raw materials and components, it’s crucial to the quality of the final output of finished goods.
Because of its importance, supplier performance management is a critical part of Supply Chain Planning (SCP). And supplier performance management software is essential for organizations looking to optimize their supply chain processes and maintain a competitive edge.
Supplier Quality Performance
The quality of raw materials and components sourced from suppliers and vendors directly impacts the quality of finished products. Any fall-off of first-time quality in raw materials, assembled components, or other materials can result in production delays, high scrap rates, increased labor costs for rework, and product recalls.
It’s essential to monitor supplier and vendor quality performance carefully. SCP software can help identify potential risks, assess supplier and vendor capabilities, and ensure they adhere to stringent quality standards.
How SCP Software Provides Data and Insights for Your Quality Management System
The key to successful manufacturing today is leveraging real-time production, machine, and supply chain data. This data is non-siloed and available across a suite of software designed to extend their core capabilities to other systems throughout the enterprise.
QMS software receives precise and timely data is its interoperability with SCP software, which helps bring supplier performance under one quality umbrella. This helps companies build a strong digital foundation of non-siloed data and actionable insights shared across multiple systems.
Here are a few features that drive this linkage:
Supply Chain Visibility
Supply chain visibility tracks and traces the movement of goods, components, and materials throughout the supply chain. Enabled by automating processes and real-time data, enhanced visibility helps organizations anticipate and mitigate potential risks, improve supplier collaboration, and streamline operations.
With real-time data on inventory levels, order status, and shipment tracking, planners have better decision-making capability and reduce the likelihood of stockouts or delays due to supplier quality issues.
Auditing
Traditional manual audits of suppliers are time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to errors. Advanced SCP software automates the audit process by providing predefined templates, workflows, and analytics so organizations can assess supplier performance efficiently and accurately.
Automated audits are part of a risk-based auditing strategy that lets companies see a dynamic representation of a supplier’s performance over time and help uncover trends affecting production and quality. They also help manage expiry issues that could directly impact the quality or require untimely disposal of products that would raise material costs and delay production.
Because you have a single source of data, you can audit your supplier closer to where they need to be audited. This benefit means you don't spend time reviewing the content you know your supplier is good at. Instead, you can focus on the areas in the supplier's QMS that need attention.
Record Keeping
Accurate and up-to-date supplier information, contracts, and performance data records are essential for effective supply chain management. SCP software simplifies record keeping by centralizing all information in a single, easily accessible platform. This comprehensive audit trail and quick information retrieval help monitor quality from start to finish.
Compliance
Compliance is a growing concern in supply chain management, and the volume and complexity of compliance and regulations are increasing yearly. Non-compliance can result in penalties, damaged reputation, and even legal action.
Supplier performance management software helps organizations monitor and manage compliance by automating the tracking of regulatory requirements, providing alerts for potential non-compliance issues, and generating reports for internal and external audits. This helps organizations comply with industry regulations and avoid costly fines.
Contracts
SCP software streamlines contract management by automating the creation, negotiation, and execution of contracts with suppliers and vendors. Contractual agreements are standardized, accurate, and up-to-date, reducing the risk of disputes and misunderstandings.
Automated contracts also help organizations save time and resources by eliminating manual contract administration tasks. Since changes and updates are done in real time, the data and information are immediately available to QMS and MES systems across the enterprise.
Supplier Performance Scorecards
Evaluating and monitoring the performance of suppliers makes life a lot easier for managers and planners. Supplier management software can generate supplier performance scorecards to provide an at-a-glance view of supplier performance across various key performance indicators (KPIs).
KPIs like on-time delivery, order accuracy, and quality are part of the scorecard. Advanced analytics helps uncover trends and anomalies in performance or quality that human analysis may have missed.
QMS and FMEA
SCP software works hand in hand to improve company planning and forecasting accuracy while tying it to quality. This data-driven approach allows managers to encourage suppliers to adopt their own QMS system with FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) methodology to identify and mitigate potential failures in a process or product before they reach your company.
Let Software Power Your Supplier Performance
With a suite of software aligned to leverage real-time data, your supplier performance doesn’t have to be lacking. With advanced analysis and near real-time insights, you can accurately and quickly audit performance to improve your overall supply chain quality.
Contact us to learn more.
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