ABSTRACT
These responsibilities are fulfilled by encouraging and motivating the supplier to
• Act like a partner so that they can be a partner • Trust and be trustworthy • Communicate with consistency • Be fact based • Think value, not just price
In order for the supplier technical engineers to perform their duties, it is imperative that all stakeholders understand their roles. These roles are the basic functions that the supplier engineer has to live up to and optimize daily. Minimum requirements for a supplier are
• Deliver the right product, at the right time, in the right quantity • Meet the technical, financial, and process capability objectives • Staff the program with sufficient resources • Complete product assurance and timing plans • Challenge seemingly redundant customer requirements
Minimum requirements for purchasing are
• Identify suppliers who deliver the required product development capability
• Ensure technical resources are available to close deficiency gaps • Verify supplier quality capabilities and utilize a metrics-driven
assessment • Facilitate a cross-functional sourcing consensus • Issue target agreements • Develop forward-model-sourcing strategies • Ensure supplier responsiveness • Drive adherence to the purchasing supplier relationship values (this
is an issue of trust)
• Involve supplier technical engineer early in the sourcing process
Minimum requirements for manufacturing are
• Participate in sourcing decisions, based on quality history and total cost • Provide shipping requirements, shipment windows, and packaging
requirements • Monitor supplier quality deficiencies and communicate them to
the suppliers and supplier technical engineer as well as purchasing • Maintain historical data on supplier’s quality and shipping
performance • Participate in quality reviews at the supplier sites • Conduct quality reviews of selected suppliers at the customer’s man-
ufacturing plants
pliers that have major quality/productivity issues
Minimum requirements for engineering are
• Provide customer requirements, program scope, and quality and reliability objectives
• Provide clarification on proposed direction • Establish a product assurance management process • Monitor and manage supplier execution • Participate actively in supplier technical and process capability reviews • Lead regular and periodic risk assessments • Lead problem resolution and continuous improvement efforts
Minimum shared responsibilities with purchasing are
• Achieve common understanding of supply base • Recognize areas of concern • Understand which suppliers are doing it right • Work together to source new business • Deal with ongoing performance issues
Whereas the basic requirements are very critical to a successful program between customer and supplier, the reader has noticed that all these requirements are very demanding in content and volume. Therefore, the responsibility of a supplier technical engineer (depending on the size of organization) may be divided into four categories with specific responsibilities. These categories are
1. Site engineers. This individual is primarily the process lead for any issues between supplier and customer. This means that the engineer
a. Interfaces with supplier site b. Utilizes manufacturing site assessment to improve supplier quality c. Is responsible for ongoing part quality and product launch
Specifically, a site engineer
a. Serves as a single point of contact for assigned supplier sites, and is accountable for site performance for new product launch and ongoing part quality.
