Never chase a supplier for a record again

Today it is a folder for each supplier, or a folder for each order, and the quotation, the specification and the certificate arrive three different ways from three different people.

Engrama holds the list of what each supplier owes you, asks them for it, and files what comes back against the thing it belongs to.

Every item carries the date it stops being true and the checks it passed on the way in, so what is current and what is missing is a state on the list rather than a search.

I am just trying to develop an approved suppliers list for our company...proving fairly difficult as we have close to 100 suppliers so trying to work out which effect quality of product etc... Anyhow just wanted to know is it enough for company to say it has ISO 9001 on its website or do we need a copy of their certificate?

You write the checks into the request when it goes out. Engrama runs them on what comes back, before it reaches you.

Some of them are a detail a machine can read: the body that issued a certificate, the date it runs out. Some of them are not. Whether the scope actually covers what you buy from that supplier is a judgment, and it is the one the forum thread above is arguing about.

You decide whether what arrived is what you needed.

Today, the ask lands and the assembly starts: the folder, the inbox, the supplier who might still have the version from two months ago.

With Engrama, what was asked for was collected when it was due, checked on the way in, and filed against the thing it belongs to.

An auditor, a customer, a regulator, an insurer, the person you answer to: whoever asks, you open the record instead of building the answer.

A buyer’s year has no season. These four keep arriving, in no particular order, for as long as you have suppliers.

A new supplier

Before the first order there is a packet you need once and cannot start without. Engrama asks for all of it at once, with what has to be true about each item written into the request.

The same request, to several suppliers

One requirement goes to everyone you might buy it from, with a date on it. Engrama sends it, follows up with whoever has not answered, and keeps the answers beside each other.

A price stops being true

A quotation carries a date that nobody wrote down anywhere else. Engrama watches it and asks for the replacement before you quote it on to somebody else.

A permission runs out

A certificate or a registration expires, and what stops is not the price but whether you may buy at all. Engrama holds the date and asks for the renewal before it passes.

What all four turn on is whether the answer came back right the first time. Right First Time (RFT) is the share of requested records that arrive complete, pass every check you asked for, and need no human follow-up. Engrama’s own reminders do not count as follow-up.