Supplier Approval Tile

Supplier Approval Tile

The Supplier Approval tile contains the majority of the reports you will use on a Day to Day basis. They generally contain a list of items that are in progress or need attention.

There are reports that cover each of the sections of a Supplier Approval record as well as the activities required to approve an Ingredient and the supply of that ingredient from a specific company.

Supplier v Site

The Supplier v Site question can be approached in two configurations depending on how your business considers its suppliers. This consideration is often determined outside of the technical department, although it can simply be down to personal preference.

Take the hypothetical scenario of ABC world foods. They have two sites, one in Cirencester and another in Derby. Each site specialises in different ingredients, with Cirencester supplying chicken whilst Derby supplies flour. In this case it may be easier for the technical department to create two separate Organisations, one called ABC World Foods - Cirencester, the other ABC World Foods - Derby. As far as the system is concerned there is no connection between them. They would be treated totally separately and independently.

However, a more accurate representation would be create a single Organisation with two sites and therefore two associated supplier approval records. There are two scenarios where this approach is preferred: 

1. ABC World foods supply both ingredients from both sites
2. Others within your company treat the organisation as a single entity (e.g. a single invoice address, a single Sage account)

A consequence of this multi site setup is that the answer to whether a Company is an approved Supplier can be a little complicated to answer, which is why you will see “Not all sites approved”. This would obviously require further investigation by the user.

Certification

Certificates and Accreditations can form a fundamental part of the Approval process of a supplier. Use the ability to log details about the specific accreditation including uploading a copy of the file.

By setting the expiry date the system can alert you when the date is near. 

Use the supporting docs section to upload any other documents that support the Certification (e.g. reports etc)

Assessment

Performing a risk assessment is an essential part of approving a new supplier, but can also be performed on regular schedule.

The default set of Questions will be loaded depending on the type of supplier. Assign a score from between 1 and 3 to each question. Depending on the total, the software will tell you whether the supplier should be classed as low or high risk (see Settings for how to change the levels).

Audits

Audits fall into two types: 1) a visit, 2) by SAQ

In both cases a report should be uploaded capturing the results of the audit.

Any non conformances identified can be logged and tracked against the audit.

At some point the Audit will be considered complete and should be verified closed by a different individual.

Reviews

A review is required before approving a new supplier. However, regular reviews should be performed as part of a robust Supplier Approval process, as well as ad hoc in response to serious issues. The frequency of scheduled reviews will be dependent on the risk rating of both the supplier and the type of ingredients they supply.

The Review record helps ensure that the basics have been considered

Non Conformances

More information about Non Conformances can be found here

Supporting Docs

There is the facility to attach any files or documents that are associated to the Supplier Approval record for future reference.