Handbook · 18 chapters, free to read online

The Supplier Performance and Recovery Kit Handbook

A complete, practical supplier control system for aerospace suppliers: qualify the right sources, control them in proportion to their risk, measure them the same way every period, respond to problems in steps everyone knows, and bring a failing supplier you still need back to performance, or move the work.

Start reading: chapter 1 The kit's tools

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The problem it solves

In most small aerospace shops more than half of what ships was made or processed by someone else, and most escapes, late lines and audit findings start at a supplier. Yet supplier control is often a vendor table marked 'Approved', a certificate file, and a flurry of calls when something goes wrong. The approved list has no scopes, the heat treater your machining supplier uses has never been asked about, the scorecard is a feeling, corrective actions close on 'retrained', and a supplier in trouble gets expedite calls instead of a plan. This handbook is the operating manual for the Supplier Performance and Recovery Kit: one workflow from qualification to recovery, who does what, which of the sixteen tools to use at each step, the weekly and monthly rhythm, a thirty-day setup, and a full worked example of one plant's supply base through the whole kit.

Who it is for

Quality managers and supplier quality engineers who own supplier control; purchasing and supply chain managers who share it; and the general or plant manager who sponsors it.

When to use it

When your approved list hasn't changed in years, when a key supplier is failing, after a supplier-caused escape or audit finding, when you take over supplier quality, or a quarter before a surveillance or recertification audit.

How to use this handbook

Read chapters 1 to 3: why supplier problems become your problems, the sixteen tools, and the workflow.
Agree the roles in chapter 4 with purchasing and your general manager before you change anything.
Follow the thirty-day setup in chapter 14, using the tools named for each week.
Run the weekly, monthly and quarterly rhythm in chapter 13 from the first week.
Read the worked example in chapter 15 to see every tool used on one plant's supply base.
Give your general manager the one-page summary in chapter 16, and keep the quick reference in chapter 17 at hand.

The chapters

Aegis Insights: how we approach this work

Aegis Insights are our own guidance: how we approach this work and why, from years inside aerospace quality systems. They are not requirements of any standard or customer.

Definitions

Term	What it means here
External provider	Any supplier of products or services that affect your product: manufacturers, special processors, distributors, laboratories and service providers.
Approved supplier list	The controlled record of the external providers you may buy from, with each approval's scope, status, conditions and dates (AQL-C03).
Approved scope	What a supplier is approved to supply or perform for you: processes, materials, specifications, parts and site.
Qualification	The assessment that decides whether a supplier can supply a particular kind of work to your requirements (AQL-C01).
Critical criterion	A qualification criterion that must be met before production orders.
Conditional approval	Approval with written conditions on what may be ordered or how, and what lifts them.
Probation	A status for a supplier fixing a serious or repeated problem under added controls.
Risk rating	High, Medium or Low, from impact and likelihood factors and any written override (AQL-C02).
Sub-tier source	A company your supplier uses to do part of the work on your parts.
Special process	A process whose result cannot be fully checked on the finished part, so the process itself must be qualified and controlled.
Flow-down	Passing requirements on through each purchase order, so whoever does the work receives them.
Scorecard	The supplier's figures for a period on delivery, quality, responsiveness and documentation, with a rating (AQL-C04).
SCAR	Supplier corrective action request: a formal request to contain a nonconformance, remove its cause and show the action worked (AQL-C08).
Effectiveness check	The test, over a set window, that a corrective action worked.
Escalation ladder	The agreed steps, triggers and owners as a supplier problem grows (AQL-C10).
Improvement plan	A plan with a supplier to lift one weak measure over 60 to 90 days (AQL-C11).
Recovery plan	A time-boxed plan, with exit criteria and consequences agreed up front, for a needed supplier failing on several fronts (AQL-C12).
Second source	Another approved supplier for the same work, qualified as a fallback or a replacement.
Business review	A scheduled review with a supplier's management of performance, plans and actions on both sides (AQL-C05).

Need more than one resource, or not sure where to start? Book a complimentary 30-minute Aegis Quality Guidance Call. We'll find the tools that fit your situation and a sensible place to start. No sales pressure, no obligation.

Intervals, stage times, bands and escalation triggers here are starting points; set your own to fit your products and your customers' requirements, which come first where they are stricter. Your contracts govern what you may require of a supplier and what you must tell your customer.

A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard, and your customers' requirements may add to it.

Clause numbers refer to AS9100D (SAE AS9100 Rev D) unless another document is named. The standards' text is not reproduced here: use your own licensed copy.