Supplier Evaluation & Performance Excellence [Hardcover]

Sherry R. Gordon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1932159800 | ISBN-13: 978-1932159806 | Publication Date: April 7, 2008

Understanding supplier performance is vital to ensuring a well-functioning supply network. This how-to book will help you develop and implement an evaluation process to help you reduce costs, lower risk, and improve both the performance of your company and your suppliers.

This practical text includes examples of best practices that companies are using to evaluate suppliers and illustrates how to get beyond collecting data for the sake of data to achieving real results. It shows how to get at the meaning behind supplier metrics, and choose measurements that are meaningful both in the context of your goals and also for the supplier. Supplier Evaluation and Performance Excellence helps you get at the root causes of supplier problems that even suppliers may be unaware of and enable them to make high-impact improvements.

Many firms do not know where to begin in the supplier evaluation process, what ways would work best, or even what kind of results they want to get. They know that they should be measuring supplier performance, but may not understand why or what they would gain from it. This book is geared toward managers at two types of companies: those who know that they should be measuring supplier performance but do not know where to start, and companies who want ideas about how to improve or revitalize a current program.

Key Features:

-Details the business case for supplier evaluation; where to start; what to measure; how to develop an evaluation process; strategies and approaches to supplier evaluation; and how to get from performance measurement to performance improvement
-Categorizes the supply base to determine which suppliers to focus performance measurement on and what types of measurement is appropriate for different categories of suppliers
-Outlines a process for developing a supplier evaluation program from overall strategy to execution
-Discusses how to get from evaluation to action and presents supplier development approaches with examples of successful measurement strategies
-Illustrates different approaches to understanding return on investment and positioning strategies for supplier evaluation to get management support for the process
-WAV offers value-added supplier evaluation tools and templates including a supplier evaluation implementation plan template, a supplier assessment topics hierarchy, a sample scorecard, a list of common supplier performance metrics and their definitions, and more, available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at jrosspub.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

Finally, there is a practical guide to managing supplier performance. This much-needed book is a must read for all executives and practitioners who are looking for ways to measure and improve the performance of their suppliers and reduce supply risk. --Charles Ballard, Supplier Development Manager, The Boeing Company

About the Author

Sherry R. Gordon is President of Value Chain Group, a supply management and performance excellence consultancy. She is a pioneer in enterprise measurement and process improvement techniques. After the acquisition of her previous company, Valuedge, she became Vice President, Supplier Performance at Emptoris, a leading provider of enterprise supply management software solutions. The Valuedge supplier assessment software became part of Emptoris software suite. Before founding Valuedge, she ran the New England Suppliers Institute (NESI), a non-profit organization focused on improving customer-supplier business relationships and on using lean enterprise practices to improve supplier performance. Sherry has worked for manufacturing and distribution companies as well as management consulting firms. She is a frequent speaker on enterprise performance improvement and supply chain topics. Mrs. Gordon has a B.A. from University of Michigan, an M.A. from Columbia University, and an MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: J. Ross Publishing (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932159800
• ISBN-13: 978-1932159806
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Purchasing & Buying

More About the Author

Sherry Gordon is President of the Value Chain Group, a supply management and performance excellence consultancy. She was previously Vice President, Supplier Performance at Emptoris, a leading provider of enterprise supply management software solutions. Emptoris had acquired her company, Valuedge where she was founder, President, and CEO. Valuedge offered a software solution for supplier evaluation, certification, and performance management and improvement which became part of Emptoris' software suite.

Sherry is a pioneer in enterprise measurement and a seasoned practitioner of process improvement best practices and high performance business models, such as lean and Six Sigma. Before founding Valuedge, she ran the New England Suppliers Institute (NESI), a non-profit organization that she led and developed from idea to execution. NESI focused on improving the business relationships between customers and their suppliers and also improving supplier performance via lean enterprise practices adoption in the supply base, supplier development and education. NESI offered some of the first public workshops on lean in the U.S. for suppliers. Sherry also worked for manufacturing and distribution companies as well as the consulting firms of Arthur D. Little, Inc. and the former Arthur Young. In addition to supply chain management, Sherry has a functional background and expertise in quality, materials management and lean enterprise and spent two years as an examiner for the Baldrige-based Mass Excellence Award.

Her book, Supplier Evaluation and Performance Excellence: A Guide to Meaningful Metrics and Successful Results was just published by J. Ross Publishing; article 'Seven Steps to Measure Supplier Performance' Quality Progress, August 2005, and e-book Improving Company Performance Through Supply Chain Management Practices, Lionheart Publishing, 1999. In addition, Sherry produced a video in 2000 entitled: Creating the Lean Supply Chain: Implementation Stories. She appeared in the February 2002 ISM Satellite Seminar: 'Complexity Management: Webs, Chains and Other Business Relationship Models'. In 2002 and 2005, Sherry was chosen by Supply and Demand Chain Executive magazine as a 'Pro to Know'.

Sherry is a frequent speaker on enterprise performance improvement and supply chain topics and has spoken at events for ISM (Institute for Supply Management), The Conference Board, ASQ (American Quality Society), the Supply Chain Council, LAI (Lean Advancement Initiative), PMAC (Purchasing Management Association of Canada), and others. Sherry has been active in AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence) as Chairperson of the 2004, 2005 and 2006 AME/IndustryWeek Best Plants Conferences.

Ms. Gordon has a B.A. from University of Michigan, an M.A. from Columbia University, and an MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "recipe" for success ......, April 29, 2008

By 

R. Gregg Brandyberry (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Supplier Evaluation & Performance Excellence (Hardcover)

Through the years Supplier Performance Management has been much talked about but in reality few organizations have implemented a program which delivered meaningful reports and sustainable results. I remember in the late 1970's, when I was a young Quality Auditor at The Gates Rubber Co. I responsible for "Raw Material" quality and put in place a manual process and reporting system to look at acceptable material lots, timely delivery and prompt customer service that was marginally effective, not scaleable beyond a single site and only supported production materials. Thirty years later not much has changed albeit the introduction of technology that has potentially accelerated the delivery of meaningless and unactionable data ... until now.

Sherry Gordon has written the first comprehensive guide for organizations to develop and implement a Supplier Evaluation and Performance Excellence program (hence the book title)that really works. She's produced a masterful "recipe" for success.

Some of the practical features of the book includes:

- How to structure a Supplier Performance Management project, including roles and responsibilities and senior management support

- A complete project plan for an SPM implementation, including tasks, key decisions and challenges

- A supplier segmentation model specifically for supplier evaluation, including types of performance information to use by supply base segment

- Sources and types of supplier performance information for evaluating both direct and indirect suppliers

- A process for developing supplier performance expectations

- A hierarchy for developing a business measurement model

- How to choose metrics that are meaningful to your organization

- Pros and cons of different evaluation approaches

- Suggested supplier evaluation processes

- How to create a good supplier survey

- How to conduct a supplier site visit

- Specific tios on the "do's and don'ts" of giving supplier performance feedback

- How to create a process for supply risk planning

- How to develop a good supplier certification process

- How to plan and run a successful supplier conference

- How to conduct a successful supplier development process

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The" Guide On How To Manage Supplier Performance, September 4, 2008

By 

Michael J. Bouyea - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Supplier Evaluation & Performance Excellence (Hardcover)

This book gives you everything you need to know about measuring supplier performance and driving toward excellence! The tools and methods it contains will provide value whether you're just getting started or you've already been at it a while. It's obvious that Sherry has lots of hands-on experience actually implementing this stuff. You won't get a lot of fluff here. Just good, solid instructions! And even though the title doesn't call this out as a "Lean" book, it fits right in with any Lean supplier development program.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comprehensive, Step-by-step Primer for Evaluating and Managing Suppliers, June 26, 2008

By 

Marcia A. Tarabori "James Tarabori" (Peoria, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Supplier Evaluation & Performance Excellence (Hardcover)

Ms.Gordon has done an excellent job of providing an interesting and readable, step-by-step analysis of what it takes to properly evaluate suppliers and drive them to perform optimally. She has certainly met her goal of providing a book "to help guide firms in this journey." She starts out by telling us how to sell the Supplier Performance Management initiative and then takes us through every step including what a customer company must do to obtain optimum value from this effort. She makes it very clear that this is a process, not a project or an event. One must understand this going in or be destined to fail. I wish I had this book to read years ago, but in reading it I find it validated what I had to learn through years of working the process.
James Tarabori
Director of Purchasing-
North America
Caterpillar Inc.