ABSTRACT
The quality of communication between an organization and its external providers plays an important role in ensuring providers supply exactly what the organization needs. To have confidence in an external provider's capability to provide conforming products and services of the quality required, it is sometimes necessary to validate their products and services, methods, processes or equipment before authorizing production or service delivery to commence. Interaction between an organization and its external providers occurs at various stages throughout the duration of a partnership, contract or in executing an order. The adequacy of information for external providers is judged by the extent to which it accurately reflects the requirements of the organization for the products concerned. In some cases, orders are produced using a computer and transmitted to the external provider directly without any evidence that the order has been reviewed or approved.
