The structure of the analysis tool

The analysis tool is built by creating separate report sheets for different analysis areas. Table 14 presents the contents of the report sheets in the analysis tool. Each report sheet is based on either the order-to-delivery, claim handling, or reclamation handling process.

Table 14 The dashboards of the analysis tool

Name of the sheet Process Contents

A-class Order-to-delivery 5 KPIs: delivery reliability, cost of poor quality, late order lines, PPM and inventory value; early, late and on-time deliveries;

oncoming order load; all late order lines in a table

B-class Order-to-delivery 4 KPIs and their trend graphs: delivery reliability, PPM, cost of poor quality, and inventory value

C-class Order-to-delivery 3 KPIs: delivery reliability, PPM, and the cost of poor quality Claim handling Claim handling No of claims based on claim type; no of defective pcs; cost of

poor quality; and the no of suppliers that have claims

Inspection and repair Claim handling Inspection and repairing hours; percentage of accepted inspection and repairing costs; no of claims per location; all claims in a table

Claim handling time and invoicing

Claim handling The no of unfinished claims; no of claims in different handling states; the amount of not invoiced costs; claim handling times;

not invoiceable costs Claim responses Reclamation

handling

No of claims without a response; no of claims without response approval; the claim lines that require further processing Parts Order-to-delivery No of used, purchased, and claimed parts; poor quality costs;

revision information; all claims in a table

Zero lines Order-to-delivery Total no of zero lines; the trend line for all zero lines summarized and the zero lines per supplier; all zero-lines in a table

Supplier view Order-to-delivery, reclamation handling

3 KPIs with trend lines and limit values: delivery reliability, PPM and costs of poor quality; a radar chart representing the overall situation of a supplier

The varying dashboards for the A, B, and C supplier categories are based on O’Brien’s (2014, p. 96) recommendations. A-class suppliers are the most important group and therefore measured in the most detail to define how well the A-class suppliers are progressing towards joint goals (O’Brien 2014 p. 96). Accordingly, the A-class sheet has the most detailed supplier analysis report that can be used for continuously improving the strategic suppliers. The case company requested a graph visualizing the upcoming orders to be able to even out the demand load. This way, delivery peaks in the warehouse and abnormal demand spikes for the suppliers can be reduced.

The B-class, important suppliers, are regularly measured with the main goal of compliance (O’Brien 2014 p. 96). The important suppliers are not developed as much as the strategic, but some of the suppliers can be taken into more precise inspection if compliance goals are not met.

The B-class dashboard presents three KPI values and a trend graph of the KPI values for inspecting how the suppliers have been developing. For the C-category, O’Brien (2014, p 96) suggested not measuring the suppliers at all. Still, as the aim is to get a good overview of the supplier network’s total situation, the transactional suppliers have a dashboard sheet. However, the report is simple and in aggregate form with only three numerical KPIs for getting a quick overview.

In addition to measuring the order-to-delivery process, the analysis focuses on the claim handling process. The goal is to prevent claims from occurring and, if a claim is made, to improve handling the claims. The analysis tool can be used to lower the number of claims by inspecting which suppliers tend to deliver defective goods and improving them towards better quality. A lower rate of claims will also lead to a lower rate of inspection time, repair time and costs. It is possible to ensure that all necessary actions are taken and claim handling is not left unfinished by inspecting how the claim handling is proceeding.

For part-specific information, there are two analysis sheets. The first one is for investigating part consumption data. Changes in the consumption and the number of defective parts can be compared to when part drawings have been changed. This is to answer whether a difference in the drawings has increased or lowered the number of defective pieces. The second part-specific dashboard is for zero-lines, which represent the spare parts currently not available on stock.

The last analysis sheet is the supplier view, which could be linked to the supplier portal for the suppliers to inspect.

The analysis tool has been built based on the balanced scorecard ideology. Even though the tool does not yet involve all the BSC areas (financial, customer, internal business process and learning and growth), both financial and non-financial aspects have been considered. Also, the main KPIs are valued as equally important without sub-optimizing any of them. An overall score for the suppliers is not calculated in this tool, as definitions of each KPI’s importance have not been made. It could be beneficial to define an overall score for the suppliers to see

which supplier is performing the best. The challenge is that so-called soft measurements based on a purchaser’s opinion are not included. Therefore, calculating an overall score for the suppliers might not describe the overall situation well enough.