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IQS’ Supplier Quality Management Solution Recognized in Gartner Report

The report surveyed and evaluated the capabilities of 34 Supplier Base Management solution vendors for Supplier information management

October 1, 2010|Cleveland, Ohio IQS Inc., a leader of enterprise compliance and quality management software is proud to announce its recognition in the Gartner Inc. report, entitled ‘The Supply Base Management Application Market and Vendor Landscape.’ The report was authored by Gartner Research Director, Deborah R. Wilson, and was published on 27 August, 2010.

According to the Gartner report, “Supplier Base Management (SBM) is identifying, profiling, assessing and developing suppliers, in order to create and maintain a high-performance, dependable set of providers.”  The report evaluates 25 SBM solutions based on a number of use case capability ratings, including scale, supplier self-service, survey creation, supplier credentials, qualifications, shared content, Risk Model Map and Track, reporting and ease of use.

“We are pleased to be recognized by Gartner,” says Michael Rapaport, CEO at IQS. “Our enterprise compliance and quality platform for managing supplier quality, performance and compliance has benefited IQS customers. The Gartner report highlights the importance of working with a partner that can deliver integrated solutions optimizes supplier management, improves business performance and helps mitigate supplier risk.”

Managing supply chains today is more challenging than ever.    Companies' supply chains are at risk due to specific disruptions including economic uncertainties, customer demands, and quality related problems. As a result these potential risks within the supply chain have increased the exposure of companies who are conducting business operations and raises concerns on continuity of manufacturing or service delivery operations.  Managers in charge of supply chains must develop a method for ensuring consistent supplier performance and responding to changes.  Through Supplier Management companies can improve supply chain performance and develop procedures for monitoring performance

By working with suppliers to improve quality, manufacturers can greatly reduce their cost of poor quality (COPQ). According to a recent AMR survey, 67% of the cost of poor quality is attributed to non-material costs; among them quality department handling, communications with suppliers, new instructions, etc. IQS dramatically reduces supplier-related COPQ with fact-based quality data used to achieve quicker problem resolution, faster change turnarounds, supplier scorecards, supplier charge back systems, and supplier audits.

Some of the best practices being employed by leading global manufacturers by leveraging IQS's Supplier Quality Management solutions include:

* Supplier Access/Real-time Quality Analysis – Giving suppliers’ access for responding to corrective actions as well as collecting and analyzing inspection data to identify potential nonconformance’s before product is shipped.

* Issue Tracking – Tracking supplier nonconformance issues in real-time by establishing consistent procedures for components and lots that do not conform to specifications. 

* Corrective Actions/Problem Solving – Enables the analysis of nonconformance trends to trigger a Corrective Action, perform root cause analysis, assign follow up actions while effectively tracking and routing activities from initiation to closure and then provide validation of effectiveness that the corrective action eliminates the reported issue.  IQS supports 8D, 7D, 5 Why, Counterbalance and Problem Solving methodologies.

* Supplier Cost Recovery – Supports recovering cost, material costs and processing costs associated with the nonconformance.  It allows users to manage the end-to-end chargeback process, aggregate all costs from an incident, route for approvals internally and to the supplier, collaboratively resolve the disputed recovery amounts, and notify back to office systems for financial closure.

* Supplier Scorecards – Measure the metrics in real-time and track improvements over time supporting sound decision-making based on actionable data.

* Supplier Audits – Provides capabilities to plan schedule and conduct audits.  Allows audit findings to be analyzed and enables the initiation of follow-up activities such as corrective action requests and re-audits.

The IQS SPM Platform provides for a scalable web deployed solution that enables suppliers to easily access supplier portals via the internet, is easy to use and configure requiring minimal training and setup. 

About IQS

IQS helps customers reduce risk and improve visibility among key aspects of business processes and performance. The IQS software model provides an enterprise-wide framework to manage compliance with multiple regulations, quality standards and compliance mandates. IQS’ integrated data hub allows increased visibility into total business process within organizations to provide actionable insight into performance and risk related metrics. Leading companies across multiple industries are using IQS today to manage and improve key business processes assuring higher levels of quality compliance and risk management.  IQS is headquartered in Cleveland, OH and can be reached at www.iqs.com.

Media Contact:

Contact: Todd Roll, Marketing Coordinator, 440-333-1344, troll@iqs.com