Iungo used artificial intelligence to help companies evaluate suppliers through data collection and organization.

Posted on 10 May 2023 by Redazione

 Only 30% of Italian companies implement a structured supplier qualification process. The data emerges from a survey carried out by Iungo, a company specialized in the field of cloud supply chain collaboration. From the same source, you learn how 70% implement the process only at the entry stage and only 20% perform it consistently.

The evaluation of suppliers, to date, can take place in two different stages. If you act during the qualification, the process begins before the start of the collaboration to understand if the candidate is solid, if he follows proper quality management and if he complies with safety regulations. Alternatively, you can work based on performance, especially in cases where a collaboration is active and the company can verify the adherence of the supplier to a precise standard.

According to Iungo, although it is minority the part of reality that it applies a rigorous process of qualification of the suppliers, is generally in increase the on the importance of the process, especially at the urging of companies belonging to sectors that impose stringent quality regulations such as, for example, the automotive and pharmaceutical.

For this, the vendor has started to propose Qualification Process, a solution based on artificial intelligence algorithms that, through the collection and organization of data, provides companies with an up-to-date environment from which to draw for the selection of suppliers. The solution brings together in a single environment the supplier cards of anyone who wants to apply for a competition and collaborators with whom you have come into contact in the past. Inside, are contained and updated in real time all the information of qualification, from the mapping and classification of goods classes and product/ service codes to any documents expiring, up to the analysis of financial viability.

The Qualification List function of the Iungo solution

The collection takes place through the automatic distribution of customizable questionnaires according to the needs of the company. The questionnaire is among the most common tools to qualify suppliers as it allows companies to collect all the information useful for their timely assessment. In the case of strategic or critical product classes, audits and sampling are added to these. For performance, in addition, vendor rating tools are often used enriched with metrics of interest to the company.

The administration, however, involves an important expenditure of time and energy both for sending questions and for receiving and organizing the answers. Qualification Process independently manages the sharing of questionnaires and the management of the deadlines of documents and qualifications, the collection of data and the evaluation of the same. The Iungo portal, then, updates in real time all the qualifications of the suppliers and keeps complete track of the history, optimizing all aspects related to compliance: "The work of buyers, or in general of the purchasing department, is further facilitated by the possibility to do advanced research on the data entered by suppliers and to access all the data in a single environment", indicated Claudio Dusio, principal consultant in supply chain of Iungo. "The profile of the resources employed at the same cost of structure can therefore be more skillful maximizing the value coming from the process with more targeted questions, more accurate evaluations, internal sharing of results".

Cover photo credit: Image by Drazen Zigic on Freepik

Tags: compliance, artificial intelligence, supply chain, supplier evaluation

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