Supplier Quality - Approval Before or In Tandem with material ordering

Hello all,

   We are a dietary supplement contract manufacturer and supplier quality has been the one program that we have never been able to successfully manage and i am about to lose my most recent supplier quality specialist because of how my company operates.

Basically, her efforts to qualify a supplier are only used as a CYA and not actual approval. So ingredients are ordered, brought in, tested and potentially used wether she formally "approves them or not". So for example if we bring in an ingredient for a new customer from a new supplier and it tests out fine but their quality documentation is trash, such as their haccp program, and our supplier quality specialist reccomends disqualifying them the company (senior leadership) by-passes her and moves forward.

So my question, how does everyone else do it? Does approval HAVE to happen before anything else? Can Quality/Supplier Qualities recomendation be overriden? What activities outside of just testing the material against the COA are you doing?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I dont want to hire a new candidate and run into the same issue so i am looking for suggestions to bring back to my company to encourage more "buy-in"

I am going to quote the SQF moto here: "Say what you do, do what you say, and prove it."  Reviewing documentation on a supplier and keeping appropriate records is the first step in reviewing how a supplier can potentially perform to meet your requirements.  It's also a great litmus test on the level that the supplier operates at behind the closed doors.  Your leadership is not standing behind doing what you say your doing.  To be honest this is disheartening and I empathize with your situation and I am sure others on these forums have been through the same challenges.  To answer specifically in general leadership should trust in the staff they bring in to do the specific task or job, period, that's what you are there to do in the first place.  Overriding general QA decisions without justification or acceptance of input is the sign of a bad culture.  

I am all about approving a supplier and vetting their facility and material(s) supplied prior to anything else moving forward.  I want to understand the risk of the supplier from a multifaceted standpoint, not just on quality or food safety, but performance as well.  So there is build up period to approving a new supplier and there are reasons for it (building the relationship, getting the correct material, understanding the inherent safety and quality risks of the material, how you would settle any non-conforming materials received, what would you do in a recall situation, etc.).  It is a partnership after all.  

You should sit down with your leadership team and explain the current situation and risks involved, and be prepared with data and metrics to prove your case.  I don't want to plant any bad seeds here, just let you know that I would be looking for new employment as well.  Leadership doesn't have your back (at least currently form your purview) that is only going to turn the good folks away from the organization, such as yourself.  

Edit: I will also add that testing a material to assure it conforms to a supplied COA is not an approval either.  

Yes... this.... most excellent motto... "I am going to quote the SQF moto here: "Say what you do, do what you say, and prove it."

Ours is - 

1. We can only buy from a supplier if they satisfactory pass our supplier approval program requirements - 100% and we don't buy from anyone if they don't meet or exceed our requirements.

We have a list of approved suppliers that purchasing is allowed to buy from. They are not allowed to buy from anyone who is not on the list and receiving is not allowed to receive anything unless the supplier is on the list.  Suppliers have to be fully approved before we purchase from them. There are no exceptions to this rule in our facility. 

OP's situation is symptomatic of bad food safety culture.  Her bosses want her to cross the t's and dot the i's after the fact, and that's only going to work for so long before they throw her under the bus for their bad decisions.  Only thing she can do is try and keep up, actually flag the ones that present a true hazard, and take her unemployment when they fire her for not playing their games.

Speaking from some experience here, from current role as the supplier approval manager and the consulting I used to do.  My VP of procurement sometimes sticks to SOP and tells the buyers that our customers will "crucify us if we don't have full QA documentation."  Other times the CEO gets involved and that same VP emails me stating "This supplier needs to be approved yesterday per Mr. CEO".  Right now we're about to start a revamp of our whole approval program since one of our customers expect us to have full 100% Integrated Pest Managment compliance across all the farms we buy fruits and veg from.  Can't wait til I have to tell our old school VP of procurement that his 25+ year buddies are dq'd because they won't play the new games.