Two due diligence files were handed over for the same size of supplier. One contained certificates, a price list and a catalogue; the other contained registration documents, a dated capacity schedule, the certification scopes, a continuity statement and the……

Four claims decide most supplier choices: who the company is, what platform it runs, what the certification covers, and whether it has capacity in the months you need. Each of them can be verified from a desk, and each takes …

Two suppliers were qualified in the same month against the same criteria and both passed. One delivered three orders on schedule; the other missed the third, because its line had been committed elsewhere and nobody had asked for a schedule. …

A brand paid a trading company's margin and still dealt with the factory's quality problem. The supplier had been honest about its role; the brand had assumed that the relationship came with process control, and the assumption survived until the …

The most expensive sourcing decision is usually the one that looked cheapest at the quotation stage. Five assumptions sit behind that pattern, and each of them survives because it is true often enough to be repeated, and wrong often enough …

Two sourcing projects started in the same month with the same product. One ended in a pilot order that matched the specification; the other ended in a second round of quotations, because the first brief had been a conversation and …

A supplier was vetted on a certificate, a sample and a quotation, and turned out to be a trading company with no line of its own. Nothing in the vetting had been wrong; the three items simply answered different questions …

Three quotations arrive against one specification, and the spread is wide enough to look like a mistake. It usually is not: the three suppliers priced three different scopes, and the difference sits in the tooling line, the certification line or …

The first list is the least important part of finding a manufacturer. Most programmes fail at the shortlist stage, after three plausible suppliers have been asked three slightly different questions, and the answers cannot be compared. A structured process f……

A hi-pot test was performed on every unit and a unit with damaged insulation still reached the market. The test had run at the right voltage for a duration short enough to pass a compromised barrier, and nothing in the …

Two lines build the same board with the same components. One has a documented electrostatic control programme with daily verification of straps, footwear and benches; the other has the mats and the straps, and nobody checks whether they work. Both …

Two 8D reports described the same defect. One closed in twelve days with a fixture change; the other ran for two months and ended where it started, because step four had been written as a description of the defect rather …