Flagship practice
Global Sourcing & Supplier Operations
Build a competitive supply base, not a supplier list. We take sourcing from specification and supply-market intelligence through qualification, industrialisation and ongoing supplier performance.
The challenge
Finding suppliers is rarely the hard part.
Knowing which suppliers can make your part at the cost and quality you need, at volume and on time, and then getting them there, is where sourcing programmes succeed or fail. A supplier list answers the first question. It says very little about the rest.
Cost and efficiency still matter. But resilience, adaptability, compliance and sourcing diversification now weigh as heavily in how supply bases are designed, and each has to be engineered into the supply base rather than assumed.
The sourcing lifecycle
Watch a long list become a supply base.
Every thread is a supplier. Each gate removes the ones that cannot make your part at the cost, quality and volume you need, and says why. Point at a thread, or select a gate.
All 18 operations, as a routing sheet Op 10 to Op 180
| Op | Operation | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Market | ||
| Op 10 | Demand & specification | Requirements, drawings, volumes and standards agreed |
| Op 20 | Supply-market intelligence | Market structure, capacity and cost drivers mapped |
| Op 30 | Category-country assessment | Where each category should be sourced, and why |
| Op 40 | Supplier identification | A long list built beyond the usual names |
| Qualify & compete | ||
| Op 50 | Preliminary qualification | Short list screened on capability, capacity and risk |
| Op 60 | RFQ | A complete, comparable RFQ package issued |
| Op 70 | Quotation normalisation | Quotes made like-for-like |
| Op 80 | Should-cost & TCO | What each part should cost, landed at your plant |
| Op 90 | Capability assessment | Process, quality system and capacity verified on site |
| Op 100 | Technical-commercial evaluation | Cost, capability and risk weighed together |
| Op 110 | Negotiation | Evidence-based negotiation with competitive tension |
| Award | ||
| Op 120 | Sampling & prototypes | Samples built, measured and assessed |
| Op 130 | Nomination | Supplier nominated on agreed commercial terms |
| Industrialise | ||
| Op 140 | Tooling | Tooling designed, built, tried out and correctly owned |
| Op 150 | Industrialisation | Process, capacity and logistics made production-ready |
| Op 160 | APQP / PPAP, where relevant | Quality planning and part approval completed |
| Op 170 | Production readiness | Run-at-rate and launch readiness confirmed |
| Perform | ||
| Op 180 | Supplier performance management | Cost, quality and delivery managed over time |
Supply resilience
Resilience is engineered into a supply base, not assumed.
- Supplier concentration and single-source exposure mapped by part and category.
- Sub-tier dependencies made visible: raw material, heat treatment, machining and finishing.
- Capacity headroom verified against your volumes, not the supplier’s brochure.
- Tooling ownership, documentation and transferability secured.
- Dual-sourcing decisions priced as a total-cost-of-ownership question.
Ways to engage
From a single category to a standing sourcing capability.
Building or rebuilding a supply base?
Tell us the categories, volumes and markets. We will map the route from specification to production readiness.
Talk to IICG[email protected]