Supplier Questionnaire Overkill?

I would like to ask everyone's opinion on my Approved Supplier Questionnaire

I've recently re-written this document (please see attachment) to be able to capture more data. We are a broker who buys and sells bulk dairy and also produce stockfeed (Calf Milk Replacer) through third party manufacturers. Part of my reasoning for re-writing the questionnaire was to properly cover all possible supplier options as I'm personally tired of getting questionnaires for manufacturing sites and still being asked to 'complete it to the best of my ability for my company' even though the majority of it is not applicable. Plus I'm a bit anal and like my documents to be fit for purpose i.e. not sending a questionnaire for a manufacturing site to a third party warehouse.

One of the additions I made to the questionnaire was to ask for document names and reference numbers as the previous questionnaire had just a Yes/No option and lets be honest, people lie, plus I'm not currently in a position to be able to conduct on site audits for our product suppliers. Short of asking for copies of the specific forms (which some customers do) I felt this was an acceptable compromise as they are providing some evidence that they actually do have these procedures written up. 

The problem I'm having is that I sent this questionnaire to our suppliers and over half of them have come back with the Yes/No option selected but no document names or numbers noted. Am I asking too much for this information to be provided if the supplier is GFSI certified or is it reasonable of me to ask for verification? 

I personally don't think it is asking too much but as the creator of this document that's a given, especially considering some of the 10 page plus questionnaires that come across my desk but maybe I'm just over thinking this?  :helpplease: I don't want to push back on the suppliers without first making sure I'm not asking for something ridiculous. 

Hi Wyldice ,

thanks for sharing , your questionnaire is a nice concise one , I think it is not the problem , it is not complicated and all the asked questions is not confidential , accordingly I guess you just implementing this system with your suppliers , in this case be patient , with my experience the response of the current suppliers will be little bit not swift as the new one , you can follow one of the below strategies to chasing them ,

First align with your management team with a written approval on your procedure , without their support you will not be apple to force your supplier .

1- Use the power : Send it from the office of your top management to their top management with a formal way and deadline , if you connect it with the contract renew prerequisites it will be perfect .

If you could not ,

2-  Send it to their sales via your purchasing manager , and do not apply a new orders unless they full fill your requirement ,

3-  Warn them that " WE Do not accept any new consignment unless the data is completed"

Allays use WE , your team will made the required pressure to get you answered very fast since the are in contact with the suppliers more the you .

it is like politics !!!

Again your questionnaire is very fair , I had received before a very complicated questionnaires required two working days !

Good luck ,

Ehab 

I would like to ask everyone's opinion on my Approved Supplier Questionnaire

 

I've recently re-written this document (please see attachment) to be able to capture more data. We are a broker who buys and sells bulk dairy and also produce stockfeed (Calf Milk Replacer) through third party manufacturers. Part of my reasoning for re-writing the questionnaire was to properly cover all possible supplier options as I'm personally tired of getting questionnaires for manufacturing sites and still being asked to 'complete it to the best of my ability for my company' even though the majority of it is not applicable. Plus I'm a bit anal and like my documents to be fit for purpose i.e. not sending a questionnaire for a manufacturing site to a third party warehouse.

 

One of the additions I made to the questionnaire was to ask for document names and reference numbers as the previous questionnaire had just a Yes/No option and lets be honest, people lie, plus I'm not currently in a position to be able to conduct on site audits for our product suppliers. Short of asking for copies of the specific forms (which some customers do) I felt this was an acceptable compromise as they are providing some evidence that they actually do have these procedures written up. 

 

The problem I'm having is that I sent this questionnaire to our suppliers and over half of them have come back with the Yes/No option selected but no document names or numbers noted. Am I asking too much for this information to be provided if the supplier is GFSI certified or is it reasonable of me to ask for verification? 

 

I personally don't think it is asking too much but as the creator of this document that's a given, especially considering some of the 10 page plus questionnaires that come across my desk but maybe I'm just over thinking this?  :helpplease: I don't want to push back on the suppliers without first making sure I'm not asking for something ridiculous. 

Hi WyldIce,

Your questionnaire looks to be fairly straightforward. It's not a bad idea for you to ask for reference numbers and document names for some of the questions. However, as you stated, you are not in a position to do on-site audits of your suppliers. This makes it very difficult for you to verify these documents in the future. I would hope no supplier would misinform you, but it's entirely possible they may. In that case, it may not be as helpful as you would like; but at least you've done your due dilligence.

We have questionnaires only for our non-GFSI audited customers. If a supplier is GFSI certified, we don't send out questionnaires. The questions we ask on our document are most likely going to be covered under the GFSI umbrella, so we don't ask for questionnaires to be completed by those certified suppliers.

As far as what our customers ask of us, we get requests for SOPs and items of that nature. We won't distribute our controlled documents, but we typically provide summaries and/or technical data sheets unless the information is confidential/sensitive. We don't get much "pushback" from customers regarding controlled documents; I think they are just happy we complete the questionnaire in a timely fashion.

In comparison to some of the ridiculous questionnaires I've had to complete in the past, I'd say yours is great. You may find in the future that expanding on some of the PRPs (rather than asking for document references), can be of more help to you. You can ask more questions, or ask for a brief summary that explains the supplier's policies/procedures.

QAGB

Thanks for the feedback guys

 

In comparison to some of the ridiculous questionnaires I've had to complete in the past, I'd say yours is great. You may find in the future that expanding on some of the PRPs (rather than asking for document references), can be of more help to you. You can ask more questions, or ask for a brief summary that explains the supplier's policies/procedures.

 

QAGB

To be honest I intentionally stayed away from asking for too much detail regarding PRP's as 1, the are usually pretty generic anyway and 2, I'm trying to make the questionnaire as easy to complete as possible so it doesn't get put into the 'to hard' pile.

I might look at adding a statement that if the supplier has GFSI certification they don't need to complete section E as logic would dictate that they wouldn't have GFSI certification if they didn't have these things. 

Any other feedback would be great through 

Hi WyldIce,,

We have a very similar form we use here - but its now undergone a comprehensive review to whittle it down.  We have similar forms for ingredients and materials but these have also been trimmed. We're tying to make it a bit easier where we can on our suppliers.

Our intention here now is to utilize the Australian Food and Grocery Council PIF as our principle questionnaire. The AFGC-PIF captures the majority of the information we require and we have a lot of suppliers who have these already completed. I have previously had some vendors pushing back on us and refusing to complete the questionnaire we provide them with as they cover off the majority of our questions in the PIFs they already had prepared.

We are now reworking the supplier/material questionnaires to ask just what is not covered off in the PIF. If they don't have a PIF then we send them a PIF and get them to complete that as well as our supplementary questionnaire. Having them complete the PIF would also be to their advantage should other customers require this type of information.

The intention of our change is we have a minimum requirement of our suppliers - if they are third party certified then a lot of the questions asked are 'answered' as they have the appropriate certification - that's the evidence that they have training programs/approved supplier program/recalls etc (Should have depending on the quality certification)  so we don't need to ask this. We do however ask for currnet copies of all of their docs - we keep them on file in our database - and request new version as they expire - or ask the supplier to send when they get updated copies. Having them on file is advantageous as when we get audited we can easily show the current copies.

I'd like to be able to share what we've developed and where we are going - but not sure if that's permitted

 

 If a supplier is GFSI certified, we don't send out questionnaires. The questions we ask on our document are most likely going to be covered under the GFSI umbrella, so we don't ask for questionnaires to be completed by those certified suppliers.

 

 

 

QAGB

Holy Guacamole, someone using GFSI certification for the intended purpose!

I pull my hair out when people are constantly sending questionnaires and documents for me to fill in when I have a GFSI certification.

That's the whole point in the certification.  It shows you have all that stuff in place and you've been audited to show that you are in compliance.  I'll even go so far as to send you my full audit and corrective actions AND my 30 days later check to see that the corrective actions have been effective. 

What drives me nuts is when you send me your questionnaire that's a damn phone book and essentially ask me to re-write my entire program for you on your document. 

The reason my stuff has 3 signatures on it is someone wrote it, someone checked it, and someone approved it to be as sure as we can it's accurate.  Now, you're asking me to check boxes, type in stuff, and potentially make errors on YOUR form rather than take the one that I had vetted several times.   

ARRRGGGHHH!!!

(rant over, it's a nice questionnaire)

The problem is that even with GFSI certification, some customers treat GFSI as a basic 'entry' level and still insist on their own documents being completed and site audits.  It's almost as though they don't trust the certification.

WyldIce,

Great question and great responses too!! I agree with the direction this specific question has taken with respect to advice and ideas. WyldIce, your document is comprehensive and well done.

I would like to agree with JPO. Rant away! Because I know I have. This whole thing about being GFSI certified. We only assess a supplier once if they are certified to one of the bench marked standards under GFSI. Annually we will assess whether the supplier is still certified. Why do I want to make them angry with respect to the completion of a questionnaire. I have sent the questionnaire to GFSI certified facility and we get the questionnaire back with the declaration signed (the entire questionnaire with the exception of tombstone information is left blank), a copy of their certificate and any corrective actions taken on their annual audit. I don't argue as the information provided is fairly comprehensive.

Daryl

Like GMO mentioned, we use GFSI recognized scheme certificates too unless according to our Risk assessments, the supplier is low risk and then supplier questionnaire is used.

In the event of a supplier questionnaire, if you are still not satisfied with the answers and they mention they have a mock recall policy/procedure, we carry out mock recalls of a randomly selected lot received in the last 6-4 months.

We have BRC and we have co-packers too and they can only have either GFSI recognized scheme certificates or on-site audits. Questionnaires can't be used for co-packers.

Although I agree with some of you that the certificates should work, we all know, certificates are just complied with in the last 1 or 2 months before audits, or at least most companies I know. I prefer unannounced audits or on-site audits even if we receive less than A. At least that would be true and might even help Quality fight for more with Production/Marketing/Purchasing in the future.

 

Although I agree with some of you that the certificates should work, we all know, certificates are just complied with in the last 1 or 2 months before audits, or at least most companies I know. I prefer unannounced audits or on-site audits even if we receive less than A. At least that would be true and might even help Quality fight for more with Production/Marketing/Purchasing in the future.

I agree with you in that often times companies only comply at the last minute, Anika. Although every company has its weaker areas, I do my best to make sure we're on top of things. It also helps that we have a TON of customer audits during the year (they too, ignore our GFSI certification), and we have other 3rd party audits during the year as well (some of those being unannounced). It keeps everyone "on their toes" so to speak. In that respect, we tend to be BRC ready pretty much year round. I will admit we do a little extra tidying prior to our audit but our facilities tend to look the same year round unless we have a massive spill or something of that nature (which gets attended to right away). It's so much harder to try and fix everything during crunch time than it is to spread everything out and fix them as you go about the year.

QAGB

Thanks for the additional feedback everyone, this was all extremely helpful  ^_^ I think I will amend this to take GFSI certification into consideration, at least then our suppliers will be happy and our approved supplier program still meets standard.

 

Our intention here now is to utilize the Australian Food and Grocery Council PIF as our principle questionnaire. The AFGC-PIF captures the majority of the information we require and we have a lot of suppliers who have these already completed. I have previously had some vendors pushing back on us and refusing to complete the questionnaire we provide them with as they cover off the majority of our questions in the PIFs they already had prepared.

 

This is a fantastic idea however I have a genuine problem with some of our diary suppliers, a few of which are global, extremely well known companies with manufacturing sites in Australia and New Zealand (therefore they know what a PIF is) who send us PIF's with the entire GMO section not completed and even when you push back it can take months to be corrected.... very frustrating  :angry2: