Qualifying a new supplier

Qualifying a new supplier usually goes wrong in one of two ways. Either it takes three months, with long questionnaires and a full audit for a plastic bushing, while the project waits. Or the supplier is approved because it had the best price and gave a pleasant walk through the shop floor, and the problems show up at SOP (start of production), when parts arrive with dimensions out of tolerance and the promised capacity does not exist. Both have the same cause: the same process applied to every part, however much it matters.

Classify the part before the supplier

Before you send any questionnaire, agree with the engineers how much risk the part carries. A few questions are enough:

• Does it have special or critical characteristics on the drawing (safety, legal compliance, function)?
• If the part fails, does it stop the customer’s line or just produce a complaint?
• What annual volume and takt does the project need?
• Will it be a single source, or is there a second qualified supplier?
• Is the supplier’s process a special one (welding, heat treatment, coating, casting), where quality cannot be fully verified on the finished part?

The answers give two or three levels. A standard catalogue part with alternatives on the market gets a document check and a simple approval. A part with a safety characteristic, a special process and a single source gets the whole package. Write the rule down once, so that procurement does not negotiate the depth of qualification case by case.

The desk check

The first pass is done without travelling and takes a few days, not weeks. You look at:

• financial health: filed accounts, turnover against the value of your order, debts, any insolvency proceedings (for Romanian companies, data from ONRC, the trade register, and the accounts published by the Ministry of Finance are a good start);
• relevant certifications and their validity (ISO 9001, IATF 16949 where applicable, special process certifications), checked with the body that issued them;
• declared capacity on the machines that matter for your part, not on the whole machine park;
• current customers and at least one reference you can call.

A common warning sign: your order would make up a large share of the supplier’s turnover. It is not an automatic reason to reject, but it means any late payment or change in volume on your side can destabilise them.

A process audit, not a factory tour

The classic tour shows the clean goods-in area, the quality office and the newest line. It tells you nothing about your part. For parts at the high risk level, prepare the audit around the flow of your part and concentrate it on two places.

The first is the operation that will limit capacity, the bottleneck. Ask how long the real cycle is, how many shifts run, what other orders run on the same machine, what the stoppage history looks like and how often maintenance is done. Ask to see the log, not the presentation.

The second is the operations that produce the special characteristics. Check whether they have a control plan for them, what measurement method they use, whether the measuring equipment is calibrated and whether they have done capability or measurement system studies. Ask for the records from recent weeks for a similar part. An operator who shows you how they set up and how they check the part tells you more than the procedure in the drawer.

Go to the audit with someone from quality and with the engineer who knows the part. A buyer alone cannot assess a heat treatment process, and an engineer alone will not ask about payment terms and dependence on a single customer.

Approving the first parts, in proportion to the risk

For a simple part, a full measurement report on a few pieces and the material certificates may be enough. For a critical part, use a PPAP-type package: full dimensional report, material and performance test results, flow diagram, process FMEA, control plan, capability studies on the special characteristics and measurement system analysis. Decide in writing from the start what level of documentation you require, so you do not end up with a thick file for a washer or three sheets for a safety part.

The approval parts must be made with series tooling, material, operators and machines. Parts made in the prototype shop by the best setter in the plant prove nothing about what will arrive at SOP.

Confirming capacity

Capacity on paper is calculated on the theoretical cycle and an optimistic efficiency. For high-volume or single-source parts, ask for a run at series rate: a period of continuous production (for example one shift or one day, depending on volume) with series tooling and people, in which you count the good parts and note the stoppages. If the result is below your requirement plus a margin for peaks, you find that out before launch, not in the first month of deliveries.

Quality agreement and change notification

A contract that is good on price and lead times does not cover quality. The quality agreement should say clearly:

• how nonconformities are handled, how quickly the supplier responds and who pays for sorting;
• which changes must be notified and approved beforehand (material, sub-supplier, production site, machine, process, moving of tooling);
• which records the supplier keeps and for how long;
• how lot traceability is done.

The change notification clause is the one that prevents surprises in the second year, when the supplier quietly switches the material source to protect its margin.

The first months after SOP

A new supplier is not qualified for good on the day of approval. For the first deliveries, usually a few months or a number of lots set in advance, keep tightened control: more frequent incoming inspection on the special characteristics, a measurement report with each lot or an extra check at the supplier before shipment. Track monthly the PPM (nonconforming parts per million), on-time delivery, response time to complaints and the number of deviation requests. You relax control only when the figures justify it, and the decision belongs to quality, not procurement.

Who decides

Procurement brings in suppliers and negotiates, quality assesses the process, engineering says what matters on the part. The approval decision is taken by all three together, and each has a veto on their own area. If the buyer is measured only on price reduction, they will always push towards the quick option, so it is worth including the supplier’s performance in the first year in their objectives.

If you want to compare how you each handle qualification, we talk in the WhatsApp group “Procurement & Suppliers”.