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7
Role of Supplier Technical Engineer
Overview
Perhaps the most visible customer representative in the customer–supplier
relationship is the supplier technical engineer. Although different companies
use different names for this representative, their function is always the same.
That function is to help communicate the needs and wants of the customer
and to make sure that the supplier has the ability to fulll these needs and
wants in the form of requirements. In case the supplier falls short of these
expectations, it is the responsibility of the technical engineer to help the
supplier catch up in its deciencies. Fundamentally, the role of the technical
engineer is to be responsible for
• Plant support
• Technical support
• Supplier site management
• Warranty reduction
• Process development
• New model programs
These responsibilities are fullled by encouraging and motivating the
supplier to
• Act like a partner so that they can be a partner
• Trust and be trustworthy
• Communicate with consistency
• Be fact based
• Think value, not just price
58 Quality Assurance
Specific Responsibilities of the Stakeholders
In order for the supplier technical engineers to perform their duties, it is
imperative that all stakeholders understand their roles. These roles are the
basic functions that the supplier engineer has to live up to and optimize
daily. Minimum requirements for a supplier are
• Deliver the right product, at the right time, in the right quantity
• Meet the technical, nancial, and process capability objectives
• Staff the program with sufcient resources
• Complete product assurance and timing plans
• Challenge seemingly redundant customer requirements
Minimum requirements for purchasing are
• Identify suppliers who deliver the required product development
capability
• Ensure technical resources are available to close deciency gaps
• Verify supplier quality capabilities and utilize a metrics-driven
assessment
• Facilitate a cross-functional sourcing consensus
• Issue target agreements
• Develop forward-model-sourcing strategies
• Ensure supplier responsiveness
• Drive adherence to the purchasing supplier relationship values (this
is an issue of trust)
• Involve supplier technical engineer early in the sourcing process
Minimum requirements for manufacturing are
• Participate in sourcing decisions, based on quality history and total cost
• Provide shipping requirements, shipment windows, and packaging
requirements
• Monitor supplier quality deciencies and communicate them to
the suppliers and supplier technical engineer as well as purchasing
• Maintain historical data on supplier’s quality and shipping
performance
• Participate in quality reviews at the supplier sites
• Conduct quality reviews of selected suppliers at the customer’s man-
ufacturing plants
59Role of Supplier Technical Engineer
• Provide technical/manufacturing knowledge and assistance to sup-
pliers that have major quality/productivity issues
Minimum requirements for engineering are
• Provide customer requirements, program scope, and quality and
reliability objectives
• Provide clarication on proposed direction
• Establish a product assurance management process
• Monitor and manage supplier execution
• Participate actively in supplier technical and process capability reviews
• Lead regular and periodic risk assessments
• Lead problem resolution and continuous improvement efforts
Minimum shared responsibilities with purchasing are
• Achieve common understanding of supply base
• Recognize areas of concern
• Understand which suppliers are doing it right
• Work together to source new business
• Deal with ongoing performance issues
Specific Categories of a Supplier Technical Engineer
Whereas the basic requirements are very critical to a successful program
between customer and supplier, the reader has noticed that all these require-
ments are very demanding in content and volume. Therefore, the responsibility
of a supplier technical engineer (depending on the size of organization) may be
divided into four categories with specic responsibilities. These categories are
1. Site engineers. This individual is primarily the process lead for any
issues between supplier and customer. This means that the engineer
a. Interfaces with supplier site
b. Utilizes manufacturing site assessment to improve supplier quality
c. Is responsible for ongoing part quality and product launch
Specically, a site engineer
a. Serves as a single point of contact for assigned supplier sites, and
is accountable for site performance for new product launch and
ongoing part quality.
60 Quality Assurance
b. Deploys the basic quality system of the customer requirements
and monitors its attainment status.
c. Leads the APQP and timing supplier engagement process.
d. Ensures PPAP compliance to customer-specic requirements.
e. Provides technical support to aid in improving quality systems
and leads all supplier concern resolution that is, warranty, capac-
ity constraints, capability verication, quality rejects, stop ships,
stop builds, eld service actions).
f. Drives supplier continuous improvement and supports Six
Sigma and customer cross-functional matched pair initiatives.
These specic tasks may be separated into four groupings:
a. Sourcing/site development
i. Sourcing for quality assessment
ii. Basic quality system attainment planning and execution
iii. Cross-functional matched pair activities
iv. Manufacturing site assessment
b. Ongoing production
i. Warranty issues resolution
ii. Quality issues resolution
iii. Supply/capacity risk mitigation
iv. Campaign prevention
c. New product launch
i. Site engineer lead for timing supplier engagement at priority sites
ii. Advanced product quality planning to ensure awless
launch at each build milestone
iii. Capability and capacity verication
d. Change management/resourcing
i. Quality risk mitigation
ii. Bank quality
iii. Capacity planning and verication
iv. New site assessment
2. Program engineers. A program engineer is responsible for the overall
performance of the team efforts to make sure that launching is on time
and without any issues for delay. This means that the program engineer
a. Interfaces with customer program teams
b. Supports program development and launch teams at customer sites
c. Synchronizes site engineer activities with program/launch
teams—single point of contact
61Role of Supplier Technical Engineer
Specically, a program engineer
a. Serves as a site engineer single point of contact for assigned pro-
gram team
b. Manages priority supplier selection, cross-functional buy-off,
and supplier priority status communication
c. Manages consolidation of supplier APQP status reporting and
interfaces with program team on elevation and resolution of sup-
plier issues
d. Monitors and provides management reporting of supplier readi-
ness for each milestone
e. Communicates emerging supplier quality issues during builds
to site management team for timely resolution
f. Supports product/part builds to track, communicate, and report
resolution status of supplier quality issues to program team
These specic tasks may be separated into four grouping:
a. Program coordination/priority supplier selection
i. Site engineer point of contact for cross-functional coordination
ii. Lead priority supplier selection process and communication
iii. Communicate program milestone timing and updates
b. Timing (APQP) supplier engagement
i. Track supplier engagement status
ii. Collate supplier APQP status reports. Elevate issues for cross-
functional intervention and resolution
iii. Manage milestone review reporting of the APQP, part submis-
sion warrant (PSW) growth charts, and part change tracking
c. On-site product/part launch support
i. Support product/part build events at pilot and nal assem-
bly plants
ii. Communicate supplier quality issues to site engineer for
timely resolution
iii. Verify and drive containment of supplier quality issues at
build locations
d. Postlaunch engagement
i. Develop lessons learned document with launch team for con-
tinuous improvement
ii. Track completion of capacity verication and status of nal PPAP
iii. Transition management of supplier quality issues to resident
engineer
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