From self-disclosure to the selection of suppliers
Supplier management is a simple term that encompasses a complex and sensitive topic. From supplier self-assessment and supplier categorisation to the optimal selection of suppliers, subcontractors and service providers, there are countless important criteria here.
The communication between you and your suppliers and the quality of the purchased goods and services are decisive for the quality of your products and services.
The diaLIMS supplier management system provides you with optimum support at this point.
Systematically identify new performance potential and simplify the entire process with our standardised feature.
Seamless integration into our QA system gives you a precise link between your suppliers and your products and services.
In future, you will provide your suppliers with all the necessary forms for supplier self-disclosure via a web portal.
Feature overview
- Digital self-assessment for suppliers
- Automated classification and evaluation via self-definable question catalogues with evaluation criteria
- Integrated document system for certificates and all other documents
- Systematic acquisition of information about your suppliers' performance potential and products
- Integration into existing processes in diaLIMS
- Precise documentation of results
- Easy access via the diaLIMS web portal
- Maximum access protection through encrypted connection and multi-factor authentication
- Timely reminder function for suppliers and your purchasing department when certificates expire
- Fulfilment of ISO 9001 requirements for supplier assessment
Supplier self-disclosure
Supplier self-disclosure is an established method for obtaining important information from your suppliers. They usually have to fill out countless forms and quickly lose track of things. You often wait in vain for a reply from your suppliers, as you are not allowed to send the next order until it has been approved by the purchasing department. You pick up the phone and try to reach your contact person at the supplier again or you write another reminder email and continue to wait for a reply.
With the diaLIMS supplier self-disclosure system, you can save yourself and your suppliers this stress - your contacts will thank you for it. Offer your suppliers an easily accessible web portal to upload certificates and proofs or to provide information about themselves. The data is immediately available for evaluation in diaLIMS without the need for complex interfaces. The automatic reminder function informs suppliers in good time about the next deadline or expiry date. In future, you will no longer have to chase your suppliers on the phone. diaLIMS will now take care of that.
At the beginning of 2023, the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act will come into force, which obliges companies to better fulfil their due diligence obligations in their supply chains and assume more human rights responsibility. Compliance with these due diligence obligations can be checked using a special questionnaire for suppliers. This questionnaire can also be easily created using our diaLIMS module for supplier management and printed out as a PDF or sent by e-mail.
Supplier categorisation and supplier evaluation
With supplier categorisation, you can always keep an eye on all evaluation criteria and quality features of your suppliers and service providers. Does a supplier adhere to deadlines? Are all the necessary certificates available and up to date? Does a supplier have high-quality products and how well does communication work? These and other important criteria determine the approval of your suppliers.
Supplier categorisation is a complex and sensitive issue in which not only figures, data and facts are assessed. The co-operation between you and your suppliers is always subject to subjective perception, which quickly influences the objective data.
With diaLIMS, you can keep an eye on both factors and make targeted decisions.
Questionnaires and translations
Everyone knows them: long tables, confusing text documents and long lists of questions upon questions. Creating these documents is not a rewarding task, nor is completing them. Analysing them by hand is also cumbersome - the information often has to be typed into the system provided for this purpose.
diaLIMS offers a completely new module for the standardised and simple design of questionnaires. If you are already familiar with diaLIMS, you will quickly find your way around and can start creating structured question catalogues straight away. The following options are available to you:
- Determine exact numerical values
- Give suppliers the opportunity to enter free texts
- Request certificates or other documents
- Mark important questions as mandatory questions
- Show dynamic follow-up questions that arise depending on the supplier's response
You can also take internationality into account. Provide exactly the same catalogue of questions for your French customers as for your English, Spanish or German customers. The question catalogue is automatically translated depending on the language of the supplier's browser.
System-controlled, automatic communication
Supplier management means communication. Do you need a new certificate? Contact your supplier. The deadline for supplier self-disclosure is approaching? Contact your supplier. You have not received the supplier self-assessment? Another task for you to complete. And of course you don't just have one supplier.
You can activate system-controlled, automatic communication for precisely these use cases. In diaLIMS, you create times for deadlines, important dates and reminders - the system compares these times with your suppliers' existing data and automatically sends reminder e-mails.
Expanding questionnaires is no problem. Have you introduced a new organic certificate? Simply extend the existing questionnaire and the system automatically informs all relevant suppliers to upload the missing certificate to the portal.
Integrated document management
All documents that you create or receive from your suppliers are stored in a single system. Parallel worlds in which some documents are stored on a network drive, other documents in a cloud and yet other documents in your ERP or QA system do not exist with diaLIMS.
- All documents are stored in the database and linked to the associated analysis data, products and suppliers.
- Certificates and other important customer documents are stored in the database and can be accessed by all departments (QA, purchasing).
- A history of the completed supplier questionnaires and their responses allows the supplier quality to be compared over time and corresponding trends to be recognised.
QA and supplier management in one system
You manage your entire quality assurance in diaLIMS.
You document every test, every result and every measurement and link these to your suppliers, products and customers.
diaLIMS supplier management is an additional building block to this existing data, which you can integrate seamlessly into your system.
Establish new connections between this complex data in a short space of time and tap into new performance potential.
A dashboard allows you to easily visualise supplier management key figures for the various user groups (purchasing, QA, management).
Full security and control over your data
Supplier information is very sensitive and worthy of protection and must not fall into the wrong hands under any circumstances. Therefore, all data remains in-house. The diaLIMS supplier management system does not store its data in a cloud application, but entirely in the database on your secure servers.
Suppliers receive the questionnaires via an easily accessible online portal, where they enter their information and upload certificates and other documents.
This web portal is operated in a secure area in your network (DMZ) or alternatively by an external service provider. This means that there is no risk of intrusion by unauthorised persons. The data connection is of course encrypted via SSL, and access protection is designed for maximum security.
Not enough? Fast and customised adaptations
With diaLIMS supplier management, you get a standardised solution that can be used "out of the box". After installation, you can immediately start integrating it into your processes and take your supplier management to the next level.
Do you have suggestions for improvement or change requests? Do you need a customised interface or do you have further ideas for features? No problem. Simply contact us and together we will design your perfect supplier management system.
We can also create and refine your customised solutions for this system.
Would you like to find out more about our supplier management and other topics in diaLIMS?
Send us an enquiry using our contact form and our customer service team will get in touch with you shortly.
We would be happy to visit you at your premises and present our software solution for your company.
A remote presentation is also possible without any problems.