# Supplier Quality Scorecard: Rate Any Supplier in 10 Questions > Source: https://netray.co/tools/supplier-quality-scorecard > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: Free Tools ## Short answer Rate a supplier across defect rates, delivery, corrective action, certifications, and risk to get a clear classification and recommended actions. ## Category field-service ## Tool **Kind:** assessment **Questions:** #### What is this supplier's defect rate (PPM) over the last 12 months? **Help:** PPM = defective parts per million received. World class for machined and electronic components is under 100 PPM. **Options:** ##### Above 10,000 PPM (over 1% defective) or not measured **Score:** 0 ##### 2,000-10,000 PPM **Score:** 1 ##### 100-2,000 PPM **Score:** 2 ##### Under 100 PPM **Score:** 3 #### What share of this supplier's shipments arrive on time to the committed date? **Options:** ##### Below 80%, or delivery performance is not tracked **Score:** 0 ##### 80-89% **Score:** 1 ##### 90-95% **Score:** 2 ##### Above 95% **Score:** 3 #### How does the supplier respond to corrective action requests (SCARs)? **Help:** Look at both speed and depth: a fast answer that blames the operator is not a root-cause response. **Options:** ##### Ignores or disputes most requests **Score:** 0 ##### Responds late with containment only, no root cause **Score:** 1 ##### Responds on time with credible root cause, recurrence sometimes **Score:** 2 ##### Fast, root-caused responses and defects rarely recur **Score:** 3 #### What quality certifications does the supplier hold and maintain? **Options:** ##### None, or certificates have lapsed **Score:** 0 ##### ISO 9001 only, recently obtained or with findings **Score:** 1 ##### Established ISO 9001 with clean surveillance audits **Score:** 2 ##### Industry-specific certification (AS9100, IATF 16949, ISO 13485) in good standing **Score:** 3 #### How complete and timely is the supplier's quality documentation (FAI, PPAP, certs of conformance, material certs)? **Options:** ##### Documentation frequently missing or wrong, chased every order **Score:** 0 ##### Provided on request, often late or with errors **Score:** 1 ##### Usually complete and on time, occasional gaps **Score:** 2 ##### Always complete, on time, and digitally accessible **Score:** 3 #### How does the supplier handle change management (process, material, or sub-tier changes)? **Help:** Unnotified changes are a leading cause of sudden quality escapes, especially in aerospace and electronics. **Options:** ##### Changes discovered after the fact via failures **Score:** 0 ##### Notifies sometimes, usually after implementation **Score:** 1 ##### Notifies before most changes, approval process informal **Score:** 2 ##### Formal advance notification and approval for all significant changes **Score:** 3 #### How much visibility and control does the supplier have over its own sub-tier suppliers? **Options:** ##### None; sub-tiers are unknown to you and loosely managed by them **Score:** 0 ##### Sub-tiers known but not flowed down requirements **Score:** 1 ##### Key requirements flowed down, limited verification **Score:** 2 ##### Full flow-down with sub-tier audits or monitoring **Score:** 3 #### How would you rate the supplier's financial and capacity stability? **Options:** ##### Known financial distress or chronic capacity misses **Score:** 0 ##### Occasional signs of strain; lead times volatile **Score:** 1 ##### Generally stable; capacity tight during peaks **Score:** 2 ##### Financially sound with demonstrated capacity headroom **Score:** 3 #### What did your most recent audit or site visit of this supplier find? **Options:** ##### Never audited, or major findings left unresolved **Score:** 0 ##### Audit over 3 years old, or major findings closed slowly **Score:** 1 ##### Recent audit with minor findings, closed on schedule **Score:** 2 ##### Recent audit with strong results and proactive improvements **Score:** 3 #### Does the supplier show evidence of continuous improvement and cost transparency? **Options:** ##### No improvement activity; price increases with no justification **Score:** 0 ##### Reactive improvements only when you demand them **Score:** 1 ##### Some proactive improvement projects and open dialogue **Score:** 2 ##### Structured improvement program with shared savings and open costing **Score:** 3 **Bands:** #### High-Risk Supplier: Contain and Decide **Min:** 0 **Max:** 39 **Verdict:** This supplier represents an active risk to your quality and delivery commitments. The pattern of weak defect rates, poor responsiveness, or unmanaged change indicates problems will recur. Continue only with protective controls while you develop or replace them. **Recommendations:** - Impose 100% incoming inspection or source inspection on all critical parts immediately. - Issue a formal performance improvement plan with 90-day measurable exit criteria. - Qualify an alternate source now; do not wait for the improvement plan to fail. - Require advance notification and approval of any process, material, or sub-tier change in writing. - Review open purchase orders and safety stock to contain the impact of a sudden failure or exit. #### Conditional Supplier: Manage Actively **Min:** 40 **Max:** 64 **Verdict:** This supplier is usable but requires active management to prevent drift into high-risk territory. Performance is uneven, typically strong in some dimensions and weak in responsiveness, documentation, or sub-tier control. Targeted development can move them up a band within two or three quarters. **Recommendations:** - Set quarterly scorecard reviews with the supplier using PPM, on-time delivery, and SCAR closure metrics. - Target the two lowest-scoring dimensions with specific, dated improvement commitments. - Apply skip-lot rather than full incoming inspection, tightening on any escape. - Flow down change-notification requirements contractually if not already in place. - Schedule an audit within six months focused on the weakest process areas. #### Approved Supplier: Maintain and Monitor **Min:** 65 **Max:** 84 **Verdict:** This is a solid, dependable supplier with minor gaps. Standard monitoring is sufficient, and your effort is better spent deepening the relationship than policing it. Watch for erosion signals such as slowing SCAR responses or lead-time drift, which often precede visible quality decline. **Recommendations:** - Move to reduced or dock-to-stock inspection for stable part numbers with clean history. - Automate scorecard data collection from your ERP receiving and inspection records instead of manual tallies. - Review the scorecard with the supplier twice yearly, focusing on trend direction rather than absolutes. - Close remaining gaps in sub-tier visibility or documentation digitization. - Consider them for new part awards to consolidate spend with proven performers. #### Strategic Partner: Integrate and Grow **Min:** 85 **Max:** 100 **Verdict:** This supplier performs at partnership level across quality, delivery, and improvement. The opportunity now is integration: shared forecasts, joint cost reduction, and early supplier involvement in design, which capture value that transactional relationships cannot reach. **Recommendations:** - Grant dock-to-stock status with periodic verification audits only. - Share rolling forecasts and involve them early in new product development. - Establish joint cost-reduction projects with shared savings. - Use them as the benchmark when developing conditional suppliers. - Protect the relationship: pay on time, communicate demand changes early, and keep executive contact active. ## Content **Intro:** This free scorecard rates any supplier across the ten dimensions that predict supply risk: defect rates, on-time delivery, corrective action behavior, certifications, documentation, change management, sub-tier control, stability, audit results, and continuous improvement. It is built for supplier quality engineers and procurement leaders at discrete manufacturers, including aerospace and defense programs with flow-down requirements. Score one supplier at a time and you get a classification from high-risk to strategic partner, with specific actions for each band. Run it across your top ten suppliers and you have an instant risk-ranked development agenda. **Sections:** #### How the scoring model works **Body:** Each of the ten questions scores zero to three, and your total converts to a percentage matched against four bands. The dimensions are weighted equally on purpose: supplier failures rarely come from the metric you watch most, PPM, and more often from the ones you watch least, such as unnotified process changes, sub-tier substitutions, or financial distress that shows up first as lead-time volatility. A supplier scoring well on parts quality but poorly on change management and sub-tier control is a latent escape waiting for a trigger. The band thresholds (40, 65, 85) mirror the classification logic used in mature supplier management programs: containment, development, maintenance, and integration. #### Supplier scorecard data model: PPM and defect rate fields **Body:** If you are building this scorecard in an ERP, data warehouse or spreadsheet rather than scoring it by hand, the model needs one supplier master table and one period-level fact table per supplier and month. Keep the raw counts as stored fields and calculate the rates, so a restated receipt or a late rejection corrects the history instead of leaving a stale percentage. Compute PPM as rejected quantity divided by received quantity times 1,000,000, and the defect rate percentage as rejected divided by received times 100. Count quantity of parts, not number of lots, unless you also keep a separate lot rejection rate. **Bullets:** - Keys: supplier_id, part_number (optional, for part-level PPM), period (month or quarter), site - Quality counts: qty_received, qty_inspected, qty_rejected, lots_received, lots_rejected - Calculated: ppm = qty_rejected / qty_received * 1,000,000 and defect_rate_pct = qty_rejected / qty_received * 100 - Delivery counts: lines_due, lines_on_time, plus the commit date and receipt date used to judge lateness - Corrective action: scar_issued, scar_closed, days_to_close, root_cause_verified (yes or no), repeat_defect (yes or no) - Qualitative inputs scored 0 to 3: certification status, documentation, change notification, sub-tier control, financial stability, last audit result, improvement activity - Output fields: total_score, band, scored_by, scored_on, so every rating can be traced and re-run #### Benchmarks behind the questions **Body:** The answer thresholds reflect widely used supplier performance norms in discrete manufacturing: **Bullets:** - PPM: under 100 is world class for machined and electronic components; over 10,000 (1% defective) is unacceptable for production parts. - On-time delivery above 95% is the standard bar for approved suppliers; below 80% actively disrupts production scheduling. - SCAR closure with verified root cause within 30 days is the expectation in AS9100 and IATF environments. - Unnotified change is a leading cause of sudden quality escapes, which is why change management scores as heavily as defect rate. #### How to use the results across your supply base **Body:** Score suppliers representing your top 80% of spend plus any single-source criticals regardless of spend. Plot them by band and criticality: a high-risk single-source supplier is your most urgent problem even if the spend is small, while a conditional supplier with easy alternates is routine management. Re-score quarterly for conditional and high-risk suppliers, twice yearly for approved ones. The most common finding is concentration risk: several critical parts flowing through one conditional supplier. When that appears, dual-sourcing qualification should start before, not after, the next escape. Resist grade inflation; the scorecard only works if the answers reflect evidence like receiving records and SCAR logs rather than relationship goodwill. #### How Netray automates supplier quality management **Body:** Manual scorecards decay because the data lives in your ERP and nobody has time to compile it. Netray builds automated supplier scorecards directly on Infor SyteLine, LN, and Baan data: receiving inspections, rejections, on-time performance, and NCR links roll up into live PPM and delivery metrics per supplier, refreshed continuously. Our AI models flag deteriorating trends, such as slowing SCAR closure or drifting lead times, before they become escapes. For aerospace and defense, flow-down and certificate tracking are built in and everything runs on-prem. Score your critical suppliers here, then let us show you the same scorecard generating itself from your ERP. **Cta:** Ask Netray to build live, ERP-fed supplier scorecards so this rating updates itself every day. **Faq:** #### What PPM level should I require from suppliers? **Answer:** It depends on part criticality and process type. Under 100 PPM is world class and a fair expectation for mature machined, stamped, and electronic components. For complex assemblies or low-volume aerospace work, 500-2,000 PPM may be realistic, with criticality managed through inspection strategy instead. The more important discipline is trend and honesty: a supplier reporting zero defects usually is not measuring, which is why the scorecard treats unmeasured as the lowest score. #### How often should suppliers be scored? **Answer:** Quarterly for conditional and high-risk suppliers, where you are actively driving improvement and need to see whether commitments are landing. Twice yearly is sufficient for approved and strategic suppliers, focusing on trend direction. The cadence problem disappears entirely once scorecards are automated from ERP receiving and quality records, which is the end state worth building toward: continuous scores with alerts on deterioration rather than periodic manual compilation. #### What should I do about a high-risk supplier I cannot replace? **Answer:** Single-source, high-risk suppliers demand parallel tracks: protect and develop. Protection means 100% or source inspection, buffer stock sized to requalification lead time, and contractual change-notification requirements. Development means an improvement plan with dated, measurable milestones and executive engagement on both sides, because working-level pressure alone rarely moves a struggling supplier. Simultaneously, begin qualifying an alternate even if it takes years; the qualification clock only starts when you start it. ## Search terms supplier quality scorecard, supplier scorecard template, supplier quality assessment, supplier PPM benchmark, supplier corrective action SCAR, supplier risk rating manufacturing, AS9100 supplier evaluation --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json