Data Pipeline and Supplier Scorecards
The end goal of the supplier scorecard system is to promote the continuous improvement of MDC’s supply chain on the previously mentioned KPIs (OTD, DPPM, Pricing). To do this, I distributed the following data reports internally and externally, as seen by the flow chart below.
External Reporting and Distribution (Supplier Scorecards and data summaries)
The goal for the external distribution system (Supplier Scorecards) is to empower the suppliers to take initiative their own quality/manufacturing improvements.
To do this, each scorecard contains the following information:
1. KPI performance: I relayed OTD, DPPM, and PRICING performance back to the supplier. I also considered supplier responsiveness and compliance, although those are not as critical as the first three. Below is an example of how the information was conveyed, much like a grade-school report card.
2. On-time delivery trend data: Figure 5 to the right establishes a simple-to-understand trend on OTD performance. In this example, the supplier is trending in a suboptimal range for OTD percentages, but slowly trending towards the yellow and green areas. The blue line represents the weekly performance, and the black line represents the average performance of the previous 13 weeks.
In addition to the above to the right, the supplier receives a summary of the late deliveries, shown in Figure 5.1 below, to assist in their root cause analysis process to identify and eliminate negative trends in performance. (Confidential information is grayed out)
3. DPPM trend data: Similar to the Figure 5 above, trends in quality can be quickly identified by glancing at the example DPPM trend graph (Figure 6) to the right.
Again, similar to above, the supplier also receives a summary of the defective parts that caused a nonconformance to be written to launch their own investigation, shown in Figure 6.1 below. (Again, confidential information is grayed out)
Internal Reporting and Distribution (Supplier Trends)
The purpose of distributing the supplier performance internally is to educate the supply chain managers and senior management on which suppliers are performing to the company’s expectations, and which are not. From there, the team is able to make decisions backed by data to realign to the supply chain strategy.
Supplier Trend Cards (Individual):
The internal reports I present to the MDC team uses the same data from the supplier performance summaries to create trend reports of the past 3 months’ on the KPIs previously mentioned. With this information, we can establish trends with the specific supplier at hand and take action if necessary.
Supplier Trends (Summary)
I aggregate all the data to compare the performance of suppliers that make similar product to one another. We call this "running with the pack."
Benchmarking the suppliers against one another helps the company identify good and bad trends within suppliers in the same industry. This layout generates a call to action to address the red in the data.
The call to action is the end of each distribution of the first Figure 3: DATA DISTRIBUTION FLOWCHART at the top of the page. We need “ACTION” from the data. Why analyze the data if we don't take action? Action taken has been either internal or external. I have some examples below:
Internal actions look like:
- Following up with supplier on a SCAR.
- Engaging the Buyers on a specific issue.
- Removing a supplier from the long-term supply chain strategy.
External actions look like:
- Conducting a RCCA on a repeated issue.
- Identifying trends for frequently late deliveries.
- Alerting the manufacturing team of a quality alert.
Results
After having implemented these systems, the biggest improvement has been communication and engagement from the supply chain globally. It has highlighted the suppliers willing to improve and earn more business from MDC. Not only have the reports pointed out opportunities for improvement in MDC’s supply chain, but also opportunities within MDC’s processes as well. The continuous improvement within the previously mentioned systems will be essential to maintain a high level of data quality throughout the company and its supply chain.
Thanks for reading! Email me about anything you are curious about at njbowes22@gmail.com