When you’re contemplating visiting your suppliers, it’s helpful to remember some advice from “Sesame Street:” “Asking questions is a good way of finding things out.”
At Mawson Global, we have the expertise and the skills to make supplier visits successful -- and educational. Whether you need a guide on-site or someone to visit potential suppliers on your behalf, we can help.
If the supplier is new to your organization, one of your primary goals should be to validate claims that they make in sales presentations and proposals. If the supplier is one that you already use, it’s helpful to conduct an annual renewal evaluation or a periodic cost negotiation.
Here are some tips on how Mawson Global can help you get the most out of a supplier visit:
- Visit the receiving dock. On the dock, we can help you find the names of suppliers and the quantities of raw materials on hand. We will help you compare the information that you have received from cost-analysis negotiations to what we can observe on-site. Here is a great place to see if the product you are buying is really made in the factory or just shipped in from the real producer!
- Visit the shipping dock. Here we can see the condition of finished goods, observe the quality inspection process and learn how shipments are handled. Making sure the quality inspectors (preferably third party) understand what you are looking for is one of the most important issues to solve on a supplier visit.
- Talk to the sales staff. We ask how orders are received, entered, and queued for production or fulfillment, and whether electronic notifications to the customer are available at every step.
- Talk to line employees. We’ll check on company morale and organization, and ask specific employees specific questions. For example, it’s helpful to ask machine operators about their productivity per hour so you can verify any commitments the sales team has made to order delivery dates.
- Talk to management. We’ll ask about such things as communication structures, employee turnover, and how long management has been in place. If relevant, we’ll help you peruse the company’s financial statements and business plan. Here you are trying to get a feel for how committed the whole company (not just the sales department) are to your project.