Can the weights be changed?

A: At the annual review only, one quarter of notice, no weight moving more than 5 points. Mid-quarter changes tell suppliers the rules serve the buyer.

How is a new supplier scored in year one?

A: The first 2 quarters use trial-order data, missing metrics held at 70 points; under 3 lots, only quality and response.

A: Quality, then delivery, then open nonconformities. If all three match, last quarter's total decides.

Two plants share one part number and sit 10 points apart. How is the split set?

A: 70/30 to the higher score. A gap above 15 points moves it to 80/20 for 2 quarters.

Can a cheap plant stay on the order book after a low score?

A: At reduced volume: tier C keeps share with full inspection, tier D runs at half. A saving under the RMB 14,000 cost of one idle day is not real.

Supplier Scorecard

Quick answer: A supplier scorecard weights delivery, quality, response, cost and compliance at 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10, then converts each into five fixed anchors.

What the scorecard decides, once approval is done
Five weights, five anchors, one formula
Four data feeds and who owns each
Settlement, tiers, and the allocation they trigger
Appeals and the two-quarter exit
FAQ

1. What the scorecard decides, once approval is done

Approval answers yes or no; a scorecard answers how much of next quarter's order book a plant should get. Mix the two and both fail: an entry score quoted in a price review sounds like an insult, and a plant approved on one strong quarter is indefensible six months later. With 22 approved suppliers, score only the 14 already shipping, every 90 days.

One rule keeps it believable: the window closes, and a strong Q2 carries nothing into Q3.

Metric	Weight	Source of truth	Anchor span
Delivery	30	Receipt date against promise	100% on time to below 90%
Quality	25	Incoming ppm, lot acceptance	600 ppm to 3,500 ppm
Response	20	Reply and plan timestamps	6 hours to 72 hours
Cost	15	Quote against benchmark	3% below to 8% above
Compliance	10	Certificate and nonconformities	12 months valid to expired

The split is deliberately unequal. One stockout that idles an assembly line for a day costs about RMB 14,000 in labour and floor time; a 2% price gap across 2,000 cases is roughly RMB 11,000. Delivery outranks cost because a stopped line is not cheap.

Compliance holds 10 points but behaves differently: a lapsed certificate cancels the other 40.

2. Five weights, five anchors, one formula

Every metric scores on five fixed steps: 100, 85, 70, 55 and 40. No half points, no interpolation: two people with the same data reach the same integer.

Supplier scorecard delivery metrics in context: a gloved worker steadies stacked black cases beside two hot glue guns on a black bench

Multiply each step by its weight, add the five products, divide by 100. Delivery 85, quality 70, response 100, cost 85 and compliance 100 returns 25.5 + 17.5 + 20 + 12.75 + 10, or 85.75, which lands in tier A.

Delivery anchors run on the on-time rate: 100% earns 100 points, 98% earns 85, 95% earns 70, 92% earns 55, below 90% earns 40. The promise is 30 days with a ±2 day band, 4 points per day beyond it, capped at 15 a quarter.

Quality anchors run on incoming ppm: 600 or fewer earns 100, 1,200 earns 85, 2,000 earns 70, 3,500 earns 55, above 3,500 scores 40. Lot acceptance at 98% is recorded but never averaged in; when the two disagree, ppm wins.

Response anchors run on hours: 6 hours for 100 points, 12 for 85, 36 for 70, 72 for 55, anything slower scores 40. The clock starts at the incoming mail timestamp.

Cost is deviation from the benchmark at the same wall thickness, latch set and foam cut: 3% under earns 100, parity within 1% earns 85, 2% over earns 70, 5% over earns 55, 8% over earns 40. Tooling amortisation must sit on the same basis.

3. Four data feeds and who owns each

Most scorecards die of ownership, not weighting: four feeds, four named owners, no editing rights elsewhere.

Feed	Owner	Refresh	Cross-check
ERP receipt and promise dates	Planning	Monthly	Order delivery field
Incoming inspection results	Quality	Every lot	Inspection report and sample
Mail and ticket timestamps	Purchasing	Weekly	Original message thread
Quotes and revision letters	Purchasing	Quarterly	Same-spec benchmark

Definitions have to survive an audit by a stranger. Receipt date is the warehouse posting, not the dispatch note; ppm counts cases received, not orders placed; response is the first reply, not the final fix.

One wrong feed kills the table.

Data is exported before the 5th and cross-checked by both functions; a gap over 3 percentage points goes back to the source documents.

4. Settlement, tiers, and the allocation they trigger

Settlement runs on the 90-day window, published within 7 working days. The review takes 45 minutes with purchasing, quality and planning present.

Supplier scorecard quarterly count: rows of black cases stacked two high on a line, cardboard boxes and pallets behind them

Tier	Score	Allocation action	Review
A	85 and above	Up to 20% more volume, first call on capacity	Automatic next quarter
B	75 to 84	Hold current share	Automatic next quarter
C	60 to 74	Share frozen, 30-day corrective plan	Review on day 30
D	Below 60	Volume cut by 50%, status kept one quarter	Priority review next quarter

The 20% uplift is a ceiling, not a promise: it still passes a capacity check, and volume that would grow beyond 20% is deferred. A supplier rewarded into a late delivery is a scorecard that has stopped working.

Tier C gets 30 days and three corrective actions at most; still between 60 and 74 on day 30, the plant drops to D.

Tier D is a volume decision, not a blacklist: half volume for one quarter, and delivery or quality back above 70 points returns the plant to C.

5. Appeals and the two-quarter exit

The appeal window is 5 working days, with three classes of document required: goods receipt notes, inspection reports and the original mail thread. All three or nothing, and an answer in 2 working days.

Only the line item backed by a document can move, and the revision applies to the current quarter, never retroactively. A complaint is easy to make; a document trail is not.

Two consecutive quarters in D start the exit, with one quarter of order transition to avoid a gap. Reapplication opens after 12 months.

Write the exit clause into the framework agreement: a rule invented afterwards is a negotiation, one agreed in advance is a procedure.

Conclusion

A supplier scorecard earns its place when five metrics become one recomputable number. Weights of 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10, anchors from 100 down to 40, thresholds at 85, 75 and 60, a 5 working day appeal and an exit after two consecutive quarters: run that for four quarters and the order book shifts by itself.

This article covers case-side specifications only and does not address any handling, loading or use of the contents.