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Supplier Evaluation & Performance Excellence
Understanding supplier performance is vital to ensuring a well-functioning supply network. This how-to book will help you develop and implement an evaluation process to help you reduce costs, lower risk, and improve both the performance of your company and your suppliers.
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Category Archives: continuous improvement
Draining the swamp
Draining the swamp is a common expression in continuous improvement. Problems remain hidden underwater in a swamp. Once it’s drained, the real landscape comes to light. In this analogy, a few problems may be sticking up above the water. But …
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Seven signs a supplier is not effective at continuous improvement
A supplier may claim to do continuous improvement. The supplier may sincerely think they are improving, when often they are just continually fixing problems and not addressing root causes, and are just running in place (if not losing ground). Most …
Process improvement: no room for idealogues
There seems to be a continuing argument about the best approach to improving the performance of organizations and companies. Consultants in particular are always arguing about whether continuous improvement, lean, Six Sigma, operational excellence, you name it, is the most …
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6 Reasons Why Suppliers Resist Continuous Improvement
I have often emphasized that a key purpose of supplier evaluation is to drive supplier performance improvement. Although it sounds logical in theory, why is it often so hard to do in practice? Here are 6 reasons why suppliers do …
7 Ways to Make Continuous Improvement Successful
Years ago, when I was Director of TQM for a commercial distribution company, the president called me into his office and said that he thought I should stop getting all the employees to do my job and make the improvements …
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Corporate fun: what's wrong with brainstorming?
I read John Lehrer’s New Yorker article, Groupthink, and then heard him discuss his new book Imagine on the radio. I found his assertion that brainstorming doesn’t work very interesting — and true. In my own experience leading continuous …
Desert islands of excellence
Several years ago I penned a rant for Spend Matters about tool heads. What are tool heads? I define them as those people who focus on the tools of continuous improvement such as lean tools and Six Sigma tools …
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Purchasing Mousketeers
I once worked in quality improvement capacity as Director of TQM for a distribution company for whom the term supply management was a new concept. Purchasing in particular felt that it had no clout or influence over suppliers. The rest …
Six Sigma Black Belts Aren't All Created Equal
Thousands of people have gone through Six Sigma training and many call themselves Six Sigma Black Belts. While they may have gone through black belt training and possess the technical know-how, many may not adequately fulfill the role and create …