How do you choose the right suppliers?

If you ask people on the street where they do their shopping and why, you will hear: good price, nice people, conveniently nearby, feels familiar, they have everything I need....

It’s not that different in the manufacturing industry, but who are the "good supermarkets" and that "fine Bakery" in the plastics and chemical industry?
And when you look for new suppliers, how do you find them, how do you assess them, what is important to you and your company.... who receives your trust?

If you ask the producers, buyers and sellers, you usually hear that trust is the most important thing, but in practice we ask for ISO certificates, certificates of analysis, specifications and we assess delivery reliability, among other things. And more often than we like the easy choices are made in choosing suppliers: who is the largest, who supplies what to which competitor, who do we know?
New or unknown suppliers often face a difficult and lengthy path for approval.

Trust is good and necessary, but it must be earned first. A good and active supplier knows its markets, knows who the potential customers are, has an eye for both the big and the small buyers and knows that a sustainable relationship is of the utmost importance. These suppliers don't sit back until you come to them, but go out to "get you in" and keep you.

And do you choose an all-in-one "supermarket" or the specialist "Bakery", do you go for local or global.... and how do you find them?

To me as a Freelance Expert on Colour a few considerations remain important.... Visit a fair, such as "de Kunststoffenbeurs" in 's-Hertogenbosch (NL) or the K Trade Fair Düsseldorf (DE), for an overview of the national and international suppliers; search on Internet or LinkedIn….. or ask weColLaborate.
Get to know your potentially new suppliers sufficiently; visit the production location and the laboratory, meet the employees of Research, Technology and Production; it provides insight into what is technically possible now and in the future… and always useful in case of questions and problems.
Quality of materials, processes and organisation is and remains crucial, so do ask for the (sustainable) policy, management systems and certificates.
Especially in this day and age, delivery reliability is apparent, but also the communication in this, whether they are flexible and think with you; ask for contingency plans, but also do something yourself: avoid having only one supplier.
And… to measure is to know, so perform a representative test program.
Pricing has always been less important to me, as long as they don’t overdo it and it’s fair.

And not a single supplier always has everything in-house, so have a nice mix of large and small suppliers, local and global, high variety of products and unique special materials.

Criteria in advance are useful and wise, but eventually time, and experiencing a few deliveries, will tell whether a new supplier is going to gain and maintain your trust.