This week and next week I am holding a training session on this topic:

Half-Day Training: How To Set Up a Supplier Improvement Program

Practical Tools for Quality and Procurement Professionals

Dates and places:

• 30 Nov. in Guangzhou – see details here.
• 5 Dec. in Shenzhen – see details here.

The European Chamber of Commerce in China is doing a great job helping us organize these events.

Here are more details.

Context:

As the buyer you need to contain cost increases, obtain better quality performance, reduce late deliveries, and get better service from your supplier base. To achieve these objectives, you need your current suppliers to improve their systems and processes. But, most of the time, they don’t take the initiative to improve. The initiative, and all the follow-up, has to come from their key customers.

Learning objective:

After this training, a purchasing or quality professional will be able to set up a supplier improvement program that makes sense for his/her company, and will be able to explain how it would benefit his/her company.

Simple tools will be introduced and shared with the trainees, and can be re-used in their daily work:

• Supplier management system
• Several correction and corrective action approaches (for different situations)
• Process-based analysis
• Process control plan

Key concepts:

We will go over the following topics:

• Expected benefits of a supplier improvement program (better performance, self inspections…)
• The 5 levels of buyer-supplier relationships — from basic sourcing to very close partnerships
• Managing information: integrating KPIs into a supplier management system
• Distinguishing between different types of suppliers (classification)
• The importance of supplier selection and its impact on supplier improvement opportunities
• Quality inspectors vs. auditors vs. engineers — typical roles
• Corrections (short term) vs. corrective actions (long term)
• Using the right problem solving approach based on the problem complexity
• Understanding a process and the required process controls – models and basic tools
• When to use statistics, process layout re-engineering, or mistake proofing
• How to keep pressure and drive improvements in the long run
• Difficult cases where there is no apparent solution

Plenty of examples will be used, and the trainees will be encouraged to share their situation for studying how the concepts can be applied successfully.

I hope to see you there!