How are Organizations Creating Visibility into Supplier Quality?

Many Life Science organizations are turning to outsourcing as a method for getting their products to market faster. However, companies must still be sure that their product is meeting strict compliance regulations and is within acceptable specifications. Any deviation or quality event arising from poor supplier quality can negatively affect the brand owner and overall image of the company.

Organizations are creating visibility down the supply chain and into supplier quality by using Supplier Quality Management solutions.

These tools are designed to increase visibility and traceability of supplier compliance processes. It involves suppliers into the process of quality management and integrates methods for risk detection and mitigation.

Having the ability to ensure suppliers are maintaining a high level of compliance is important. There are several components that foster compliance with suppliers:

• Tracking the receipt of accepted materials with set inspection business rules
• Building measurement activities dependent on past supplier performance
• Allowing supplier activities to automatically feed into a comprehensive supplier rating report
• Collecting quantitative and qualitative supplier rating information

Mitigating supplier risks lies in the ability to build risk capabilities into supplier processes. Enabling an organization to quantitatively assess supplier risks through risk-based supplier rating is the best way that companies can oversee threats. It also helps provide a more objective means of supplier assessment.

Risk tools have the ability to be applied throughout the entire supplier management process, while also providing an added dimension to the inspection and monitoring process. Risk-based supplier reporting and overall mitigation of supplier risk both share the overall goal of enabling organizations to have an objective and repeatable means of selecting the suppliers that pose the lowest risk to business.

Risk tools help to put threats into perspective. The Compliance Management System’s integrated Risk Management tools enable companies to set up scorecards that contain both qualitative and quantitative elements. From there, supplier-rated data on materials is inspected and if defects are found companies have the ability to set controls before the adverse event takes place.

Reporting is another benefit. This means that all actions taken can be immediately compiled into a holistic report that shows which departments were affected by risk and what actions were taken. In doing so, companies can identify trends in risk to stop recurrence.

By extending compliance processes to suppliers, organizations can effectively gain more visibility and enhance collaboration, ultimately achieving supply chain operational excellence.