Supplier Funded Program

Overview

Our Supplier Funded Initiative eliminates the cost for Quality Assurance Services while motivating suppliers to improve their processes. One immediate benefit of this program is that it transfers the cost of quality to those suppliers whose performance fails to meet your requirements. The performance requirements are set by you and flowed down to the supplier.

What is Our Supplier Funded Initiative?

• A method of protecting your interests without bearing the cost of poor quality
• Inspection of hardware at source for suppliers not meeting your quality standards
• The “Next Step” in transferring quality responsibility to your suppliers

Why Supplier Funded?

• Reduce Non-Value Added costs
• Place responsibility for supplier quality on your suppliers
• Motivates supplier toward process control/performance improvement

How Does It Work?

• A contract is developed between our companies
• You provide us with your candidate supplier list
• Introduction package sent to the suppliers from you
• We administer contracts with your suppliers
• We schedule and coordinate the activity based on your requirements
• We report results to you and your supplier
• We invoice your supplier for services

Key Success Factors

• Up front Planning/Coordination
• Clear/Timely notification to suppliers of program requirements
• Detailed performance criteria
• Well documented technical requirements
• Adherence to the Unitek Technical Services Supply Chain Management Process

Process

The field surveillance process will remain consistent with the direction currently being deployed by your company. This will ensure consistency with your requirements and will also be transparent to Technical Specialists (TSs) performing the activity. Additionally, if desired, we will extend our negotiated base service rates to specific suppliers within your supplier community.

Contract Administration

A one-page contract form between Unitek Technical Services Chain Management and your supplier is used as the commercial vehicle for the initiative. This is a limited contract that has a minimum set of terms and conditions applied. It was modeled on our existing contract with other Customers and has proven effective for supplier funded activities. When your representatives contact your supply base to notify them of the pending supplier funded initiative, these pro-forma contracts may be included in any mailing that you would send to them. By sending these together, your supplier will understand the scope of the responsibilities that you are transferring to them.

The contract would be completed by the supplier and forwarded to our Centreville, Virginia headquarters. Our contracts department would then perform the initial Customer viability checks, set-up the contract in our system, and post the contract status. Activity would then proceed in accordance with standard procedures.

Incidence of Non-Payment

In the event that a supplier defaults on payment to Unitek Technical Services, we require that your company reimburse us for all associated TS time and expenses. Fees for these services will be passable to your company only in cases where we have exhausted all reasonable effort of obtaining payment in accordance with our documented accounts receivable process.

What Else?

• Mitigite Non-Payment Risk From Suppliers – 30 Day Feedback
• Establish Supplier Performance Measures & Metrics
• Regular Program Reviews - We Want You To Be Delighted!
• Supplier “Certification” Pitfalls and Solutions Planning

Supplier Funded Services May Include

• Source Inspection
• Systems Audits
• Process Audits
• Production Monitoring/Expediting
• Training
• Process Review and Analysis