Supplier Quality and Productivity for Procurement Professionals Training Course

Course overview

Procurement professionals are increasingly expected to protect supply continuity, reduce total cost and improve supplier performance at the same time. Yet many supplier reviews remain focused on price variance, late deliveries and informal escalations, without identifying the process conditions driving defects, capacity loss, rework or unstable lead times. This course equips participants to turn supplier quality and productivity data into structured improvement priorities, stronger commercial decisions and measurable supplier commitments.

Participants learn how to define supplier quality requirements, measure cost of poor quality, analyse supplier scorecards and distinguish common-cause variation from assignable causes. The programme covers supplier capability assessment, process mapping, Pareto analysis, root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive action (CAPA), Lean waste identification, total productive maintenance indicators and productivity measurement. Participants also practise linking quality clauses, service-level measures, improvement plans and contract governance to sourcing and supplier-management decisions.

Instructor-led sessions combine procurement-focused case work, spreadsheet analysis and facilitated supplier-performance workshops. Participants work with realistic data covering defects, on-time delivery, yield, rework, capacity utilisation and corrective-action closure. By the end of the week, each participant produces a Supplier Quality and Productivity Improvement Pack: a scorecard, supplier diagnostic, prioritized improvement plan, CAPA tracker, governance cadence and draft supplier review agenda that can be adapted for an active supplier portfolio.

The course is designed for experienced procurement, sourcing and supplier-management professionals who influence supplier selection, performance reviews or improvement activity. It is particularly valuable where supplier defects, weak delivery reliability, escalating quality costs or productivity constraints are affecting operations, projects or customer commitments.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Build a weighted supplier quality and productivity scorecard using defect, delivery, cost and capability measures
• Calculate cost of poor quality using scrap, rework, returns, inspection and disruption cost data
• Assess supplier process capability using Cp, Cpk, yield and first-pass-quality indicators
• Apply Pareto charts, fishbone diagrams and 5 Whys to diagnose recurring supplier-performance issues
• Create a supplier corrective and preventive action plan with owners, due dates and verification criteria
• Identify Lean waste and productivity losses across a supplier process map
• Draft quality, productivity and continuous-improvement clauses for supplier agreements and review packs
• Present a prioritized Supplier Quality and Productivity Improvement Pack to internal stakeholders and suppliers

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Procurement Managers — who must improve supplier performance while protecting cost, continuity and contractual value
• Strategic Sourcing Managers — who need to assess quality and capability risks before award and during supplier development
• Supplier Relationship Managers — who lead performance reviews and require evidence-based improvement conversations
• Category Managers — who manage supplier portfolios where defects, lead-time variability or capacity constraints affect spend outcomes
• Procurement Analysts — who build supplier scorecards and need to convert operational data into decision-ready insight
• Contract Managers — who need measurable quality, productivity and corrective-action commitments in supplier agreements

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in procurement, sourcing, contract management or supplier-performance management, including familiarity with purchase specifications, supplier KPIs and basic commercial terms. They should be comfortable reading tables, calculating percentages and working with simple spreadsheet formulas such as SUM, AVERAGE and percentage variance. Prior exposure to supplier scorecards, quality incidents or operational review meetings is useful. A laptop with Microsoft Excel or equivalent spreadsheet software is recommended for exercises. Formal qualifications in Lean, Six Sigma, ISO auditing, statistics, manufacturing engineering or SAP Ariba are not required; the course explains the applied methods needed for procurement use.

Training methodology

The programme is delivered through instructor-led briefings, guided data analysis and procurement-specific supplier cases. Participants interpret a supplier scorecard in Excel, calculate quality-loss costs, map a supplier process, and use Pareto, fishbone and 5 Whys methods to investigate performance breakdowns. Small-group workshops simulate a supplier business review and a corrective-action escalation meeting, requiring participants to balance commercial, operational and quality concerns. Each day adds material to an individual Supplier Quality and Productivity Improvement Pack, followed by end-of-course application planning for a live supplier category or portfolio.

Course outline

Day 1: Supplier Performance Baselines and Quality Economics

• Procurement accountability for supplier quality, delivery and productivity outcomes
• Voice of customer and critical-to-quality requirement translation
• Supplier performance metric hierarchy and KPI definitions
• Cost of poor quality categories: prevention, appraisal, failure and disruption
• Weighted supplier scorecard design and scoring logic
• Data integrity checks for defects, returns, late deliveries and spend data
• Supplier segmentation by business criticality and performance risk

Workshop: Participants build a baseline supplier scorecard and calculate the cost of poor quality for a supplier using a realistic procurement data set.

Day 2: Supplier Quality Analysis and Capability Assessment

• Defect definitions, defect-per-million opportunities and first-pass yield
• Process capability concepts using Cp, Cpk and specification limits
• Control charts and the distinction between common-cause and special-cause variation
• Pareto analysis for defect families, parts, processes and suppliers
• Sampling, inspection evidence and supplier quality records
• Supplier quality system assessment against ISO 9001 principles
• Risk-based supplier audit planning and evidence collection

Workshop: Participants analyse a supplier defect data set, create a Pareto chart and prepare an evidence-based capability and audit-risk assessment.

Day 3: Root Cause, CAPA and Supplier Escalation

• Problem statements that separate symptoms, impacts and failure modes
• Fishbone diagrams using people, machine, material, method, measurement and environment categories
• 5 Whys analysis and root-cause validation
• Failure mode and effects analysis for supplier process risks
• Corrective action versus preventive action design
• CAPA tracker fields, action ownership and effectiveness verification
• Supplier escalation paths and structured business review agendas

Workshop: Working from a recurring incoming-defect case, participants complete a root-cause workshop and produce a supplier CAPA tracker with verification gates.

Day 4: Supplier Productivity and Lean Improvement

• Productivity measures: labour, equipment, material and throughput productivity
• Value-stream mapping for supplier lead time and process handoffs
• Lean waste identification using the TIMWOODS framework
• Overall equipment effectiveness and total productive maintenance indicators
• Capacity utilisation, bottleneck analysis and constraint management
• Setup reduction, batch-size effects and flow improvement opportunities
• Should-cost implications of yield loss, downtime and inefficient process design

Workshop: Participants map a supplier production flow, identify productivity losses and prepare a prioritized Lean improvement opportunity register.

Day 5: Commercial Integration and Supplier Improvement Governance

• Quality and productivity requirements in specifications and statements of work
• Service-level agreements, acceptance criteria and performance thresholds
• Continuous-improvement clauses and gainshare mechanisms
• Supplier review cadence, dashboard reporting and action governance
• Cross-functional alignment with quality, operations, engineering and finance
• Supplier development prioritization and intervention decisions
• Improvement business cases, benefits tracking and executive communication

Workshop: Participants assemble and present their Supplier Quality and Productivity Improvement Pack, including a scorecard, CAPA plan, governance cadence and supplier-review agenda.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, SAP Ariba, ISO 9001:2015

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions