We who are engaged in supply chain management look very beautiful on the outside. After all, you are the job of sending money to suppliers and represent the supreme customer status. However, only we know how challenging our work is. AsSQEWho hasn't blushed with their own internal production, who hasn't yelled at suppliers, and who has been gentle all day to do business with your third-rate suppliers?

If we encounter a weak supplier, we can shout loudly and the other party is trembling, but the quality is not well controlled,SQEIt is inevitable that we will be attacked by internal production challenges and even at the monthly quality conference. We can only follow orders with trepidation and greet them with smiling faces. Then I thought to myself: Damn some supplier, I wish I could blow up your factory!

In fact, sometimes more deadly is not the weak suppliers, weak suppliers weak in quality, strong in cooperation; what if you encounter a strong supplier? Without full evidence and certainty, you let him rectify, he said he has their system; you let him choose, he said the problem is not theirs; you let him cooperate, he said they have no extra manpower. Shanghai Quanta Computer has1Support500People'ssortingThe team is under the command of the purchasing department, why ??? Just because they do contract manufacturing for Apple, the suppliers are all designated by Apple. The screen uses Samsung, the motherboard and interface uses Foxconn, the back cover uses Asus, and even the small keyboard is designated by Logitech. Are these suppliers easy to manage? DearSQEDear purchasing, dear logistics engineers?

It's not good to control, there is a quality problem, how to do? Let your own firstsortingGrand ArmysortingIt's over, to ensure the market demand of Apple, let's talk about the following things ~ What about the strong suppliers? That also has to be managed ~

 

In today's economic globalization, the relationship between suppliers and enterprises is no longer a simple business relationship, suppliers as a valuable resource of enterprises, more and more attention by enterprises, the competition between enterprises has extended to the competition of excellent suppliers. In order to ensure the quality of products, enterprises must strengthen the quality management of suppliers.

 

Generally speaking, when we talk about supplier quality management, we will be based on a premise: the enterprise is in a strong position, while the supplier is in a weak position, the supplier is willing to get the help of the enterprise, the enterprise can assist the supplier to make quality improvement through guidance, and so on. However, is it possible that the enterprise is in a weak position and the supplier is in a strong position? The answer is yes.

 

Usually, the components involved in the key parts of the product should be manufactured by the enterprise itself, not by external suppliers, otherwise the enterprise may lose its competitive advantage. However, for production-oriented enterprises, only some external manufacturers have the technology and ability to produce key components of certain products. Suppliers of these key components often have advantages in brand, technology, and market share, and companies must accept these strong suppliers in order to produce products.

 

In order to ensure product quality, companies must still manage the quality of these strong suppliers of key components. How to deal with the relationship with suppliers, how to carry out quality management for such suppliers, let's have a good talk ~

 

Definition and characteristics of a strong supplier

Definition of (I) Strong Supplier
Generally speaking, the supplier we are talking about refers to the enterprise that provides parts products or related services. Strong supplier is a new concept put forward by the author, which means those who have mastered the production technology of key parts of the product and have strong R & D and production capacity.

 

Characteristics of (II) strong suppliers
Many of the strong suppliers are the leading leaders in the industry, and some are internationally renowned large enterprises. Taking the production of digital cameras as an example, the manufacturer of camera lenses can be called a typical strong supplier. The following is a combination of digital camera lens suppliers of the relevant situation, introduce the characteristics of strong suppliers.

 

1The parts provided by strong suppliers are the key parts of the products produced by the enterprise.
The lens of a digital camera is a typical example. The perfect photo relies heavily on a good quality lens. Another example is the computer.CPUChip, without this thin piece of chip, the computer would be paralyzed.

 

2Only a few suppliers can produce key components.
Only a few companies can produce such key components, or there is a large gap in production capacity in this industry, and only a few companies have stable production capacity and high quality assurance. Most of the camera lens suppliers are internationally renowned large enterprises, such as Zeiss (Zeiss), Nikon (Nikon), Canon (Canon), Pentax (Pentax), Olympus (Olympus), Fuji (Fuji) and so on no more15home enterprises.

 

3The supplier has patented technology in this area, forming a technical barrier. The production of this key component has high technical requirements, and these suppliers have patented technology in this area, forming an indestructible technical barrier.

 

The production technology of camera lens is high, difficult and costly. Therefore, although the lens plays a very key role in digital cameras, due to the lack of mature technology in the domestic lens industry, most of the lenses still need to rely on several foreign companies.

 

4．Strong suppliers have very strong strength in management.
Strong suppliers are old companies that have been working hard in the industry for decades or even more than a hundred years, or new companies that use the latest management technology and scientific methods to manage. In short, they have very strong management capabilities.

 

ZEISS (Zeiss) the company was founded on1846In, Nikon (Nikon) the company was founded on1927In, Pentax (Pentax) created in1919In, there are many famous lens manufacturers that are established enterprises with a long history. The management experience they have summed up in these decades or even more than 100 years is beyond our reach. The representative of the new enterprise is to produceCPUThe famous Intel (Intel) company andAMDcompany, their R & D management concept is a concentrated expression of new management techniques and scientific methods.

 

Reasons for (III) to choose a strong supplier
1At present, the domestic industry has not yet mature technology.
Take the production of camera lenses as an example. The production technology of this component is high, difficult, and costly. Therefore, although the lens plays a very critical role in digital cameras, because the domestic lens industry does not yet have mature technology, most The lens still needs to rely on several major foreign manufacturers to provide it.

 

2．The production risk of this component is quite high.
The production of lens glass is related to the stability of the machine, the content of additives, standardized technology, and various levels. Every level of error will cause the loss of the lens can not be repaired. Therefore, although there are many brands of digital cameras, many manufacturers still prefer to buy lenses produced by large factories to match the body produced by our factory, rather than invest in the production of high-risk optical lenses.

 

supplier quality management mode

(I) a competitive supplier quality management model
Under the competition-based quality management model, the relationship between enterprises and suppliers is a short-term, loose, mutual relationship as counterparties and competitors. Under such a basic relationship, the buyer and seller deal“0－1”Countermeasures, one side wins and the other side loses. Advantages in the short term are valued more than long-term reciprocity. Buyers always try to keep prices as low as possible, while suppliers always try to raise prices as high as possible on the grounds of special quality requirements, special services and changes in order quantities, and which party wins depends mainly on which party has the upper hand in the transaction.

 

For example, the buyer's purchases are a large percentage of the supplier's total sales, the buyer can easily get the items it needs from other suppliers, and it does not cost much to change suppliers, in which case the buyer will have the upper hand. On the contrary, it is possible that the supplier has the upper hand.

 

(II)Supplier quality management model based on cooperation
In the cooperation-based quality management model,Buyer and seller see each other as partners（partner），Both parties maintain a long-term mutually beneficial relationship. Buyers and sellers share costs, profits, quality assurance and information at a defined target price..

 

Since buyers and sellers recognize that a defective product will cause losses to both parties, they can work together to improve quality. Once there is a quality problem, the buyer will work with the supplier to analyze the cause and solve the problem. Because the two parties have established a relationship of trust and communicate with each other about the quality of the products, the buyer can even use the supplied materials directly without inspection.

 

Obviously,“Cooperation”mode ratio“Competition”The model has more advantages. In today's increasingly changing market demand and increasingly fierce market competition, the cooperation model is more conducive to the improvement of the competitiveness of enterprises. However, there is no absolute thing, and the cooperation model also has its limitations: in this model, suppliers lack competitive pressure, which may lack the motivation to continuously innovate. Enterprises should develop appropriate supplier quality management models based on their specific circumstances, combining the advantages of the two basic models and the characteristics of suppliers.

 

Below we will discuss in detail the model of quality management for strong suppliers in stages.

 

Quality Management of Strong Suppliers in 4. Product Design and Development Stage
At present, more and more enterprises let suppliers participate in the design and development of products as early as possible, so as to make full use of the technical advantages and specialized experience of suppliers. However, for strong suppliers, it is feasible to invite them to participate in the design and development of products, but they cannot go deep into their core technology fields, because these core technologies are the source of strength of strong suppliers, and it is impossible to disclose any information. Therefore, we need to adjust its quality management.

 

(I)Invite suppliers to participate in the early design and development of the product.
Involve suppliers in design and development and ask them to make suggestions for reducing costs, improving performance, improving product quality and reliability, and improving processability. This is not only the demand of the product itself (the design of digital cameras is often to determine the lens before designing the corresponding body, which shows the importance of the lens), but also an opportunity to show the sincerity of the enterprise. Suppliers can fully understand the quality requirements of the product. For the convenience of future work, suppliers start quality management from the beginning of the value chain, which is beneficial to the final quality of the product.

 

(II)Quality function deployment method.
Enterprises to allow suppliers to truly participate in product design and development of products, but also need a certain method of support, quality functions.（QFD,qualityfunctiondeployment）is an effective method.<Reply 20141003Get QFDRelated knowledge to explain>

 

Quality function deployment is a method that transforms customer requirements into product quality characteristics and expands them step by step through component characteristics and process characteristics to production characteristics. It fully embodies“Source Stream Management”The idea is to grasp the customer's needs, grasp the key impact process, in accordance with customer needs, technical requirements and output quality characteristics of the order in turn, so that product development is highly targeted, high success rate, and can greatly shorten the development cycle. We can use this as a basis for evaluating the key components of the product, thus providing the most important basis for determining the suppliers of key components. Quality function deployment can be divided into four stages.

 

The four stages are:
1. Conduct market analysis to obtain information about customer needs, and then identify the key components of customer satisfaction and translate them into product characteristics.
2. Translate key product characteristics into component characteristics;
3. Transforming key component characteristics into process characteristics;
4Translating key process characteristics into production characteristics.

 

Obviously, the use of quality function deployment methods for product design and development by enterprises and suppliers not only helps suppliers understand the requirements of end customers, but more importantly, suppliers can directly translate component quality requirements into process characteristic requirements and processes. Although the enterprise can not go deep into the core technical fields of suppliers, it is also beneficial for the suppliers to fully understand the requirements of the enterprise for key components for quality management in the future.

 

Quality management of suppliers in trial production stage

The pilot phase is characterized by small quantities, no or very small inventory, timely delivery requirements, and relatively loose price requirements.

 

Different from general supplier quality management, for strong suppliers, there is no need for enterprises to provide detailed technical documents or production resources for production. Strong suppliers have their own production technology and ability, do not need to provide technology, equipment, training and so on, which itself also saves a certain cost for enterprises.

 

According to the characteristics of the trial stage, the quality management of strong suppliers has the following aspects:

 

(I)Sign trial production contract
Sign a trial production contract with a strong supplier to provide samples that meet the requirements within the specified time. The contract shall include technical standards, product acceptance criteria, confidentiality requirements, etc. When communicating with strong suppliers, they must also require strong suppliers to strictly abide by the confidentiality regulations of the enterprise, and should not belittle themselves because the suppliers are stronger than themselves.

 

(II) quality inspection of samples provided by suppliers

In the testing phase, due to the limited number of products or services provided by the supplier, it is only necessary to ensure the trial production of the product. For general supplier quality management, suppliers in the testing phase may not naturally become suppliers in the mass production phase of the enterprise, so there is no need for total quality management of suppliers. However, unlike general supplier quality management, for strong supplier quality management, at this stage a single supplier (I. e., the strong supplier we are discussing) has been established as the supplier of this key component, so from this stage onwards into the strong supplier of total quality management.

 

Considering the continuity of work, the enterprise should consciously reach agreement with suppliers in terms of quality requirements, technical standards, quality management system requirements, measurement system requirements, etc.

 

In the testing stage, the samples provided by strong suppliers should be fully inspected instead of sampling. This is because: firstly, the key components provided by strong suppliers are generally valuable, and the high-priced components should be fully inspected; Secondly, the components provided by suppliers at this stage are only for trial production, and the quantity is limited. The enterprise is fully capable of carrying out full inspection. Thirdly, full inspection is helpful to understand the quality problems of key components and timely feedback to suppliers, ask for its improvement.

 

(III)Preliminary evaluation of suppliers' quality assurance capabilities
For the general supplier quality management, this is a very critical link, the evaluation results often affect the quality of the supplier can stand out as the last selected supplier. However, for strong supplier quality management, this stage is almost skipped, because as a strong supplier of the industry leader, it is trustworthy in terms of quality assurance ability. Unless it is for very special reasons, it is basically rare to replace a strong supplier at this stage.

 

Skip this link, you can save the cost of evaluation, but on the other hand, because there is no such a comprehensive evaluation, enterprises also lost an opportunity to understand and learn.

 

(IV)Product quality problem solving
For general supplier quality management, in the sample trial production stage, the solutions to product quality problems are: improvement, compromise, and replacement of suppliers. There is no problem of batch inspection at this stage. The quantity of rework, repair and concession acceptance will not be very large. The main problem is to solve the improvement problems, including the improvement of product quality and the improvement of supplier selection.

 

As mentioned above, strong suppliers are the best in the industry, so it is unlikely to change suppliers, because: first of all, famous enterprises in the industry are synonymous with quality assurance, for consumers, knowing that key parts are manufactured by famous enterprises in the industry will also have a sense of trust in the quality of the product; secondly, enterprises themselves also want to maintain good relations with strong suppliers for future cooperation, there is no reason why strong suppliers will not be easily replaced. Thirdly, strong suppliers themselves have strict quality requirements. If there are quality problems, they will actively improve. With their advanced technology, they have been able to overcome many quality problems.