Unleashing the Power of Supplier Performance Metrics

This is a master thesis investigating how companiesevaluate suppliers' performance when purchasinggoods. Which metrics are used and how they aredefined? What is the process for gathering, storingand working with supplier metrics data? Thepurchasing function of companies has becomeincreasingly important and this work highlights andanalyzes some difficulties that arise when measuringsuppliers: both internally in the purchasingorganization and externally with regards to thesuppliers. Data has been gathered from interviewswith 25 persons working in purchasing and qualitymanagement, mostly in industrial companies. The datais analyzed within a theoretical framework. Aninteresting finding from a theory analysis is thelack of theory explaining in detail how to measure:this theory gap correlates with the difficultiesencountered by companies in their practical work. Amain conclusion of the study is that the complexityof the field of supplier performance metrics islarger than what is hinted or even mentioned by mostacademic literature