How to assess & improve my supplier’s processes when working with Sofeast?

If you have key suppliers and you want to work with us to assure that production processes are optimized and they are able to produce your orders at the quality you expect consistently we will, roughly, propose the following activities to monitor and improve their processes:

• A Quality System Audit in your main/largest supplier
• If needed, we will work with them to draft a process FMEA and set up a process control plan, and then check if those changes are reflected in their operators’, inspectors’, and maintenance technicians’ work instructions. 
• Based on the risks observed, based on the controls that seem to be missing, and based on past issues, we will suggest a regular process management audit.
• We will keep everything in an ‘issue tracker’ spreadsheet (one for each assembly supplier), so you can keep pressure on their top management.
• We can also start this with some other suppliers at the same time, but most clients like to stage the approach a bit. 
• When a serious issue comes up, we can work with the manufacturer on an 8D, and it usually leads to an update in the documents I mentioned above (FMEA, control plan) and their work instructions.