August 30, 2024
I continue to receive personal inquiries from members surrounding best practices regarding the formal qualification of an on-site audit of both new and existing suppliers—obviously critical to many.
I suspect the questions continue to stem from our members’ continued COVID-19 supply chain interruptions and key material sourcing adjustments that may or may not have been called out during that troubling period. Many changes were made on the fly and not spelled out.
The AICC Supplier Qualification Document I is available via this article (scan the QR code at right to download), and it is one of the most comprehensive I have personally seen over my four decades in packaging leadership. As I operated many facilities that were qualified suppliers of folding cartons to both pharmaceutical and health care clients, I became acutely aware of just how critical it was to be in an unannounced, key-client-visit-ready mode every day. This was a culture that I spoke to daily to ensure each and every employee understood the critical nature of what we provided to our clients and how important it was to walk the qualified talk every day with suppliers and clients.
The top five foundational elements of my supplier qualification system readiness were usually as follows:
A basic ISO 9000/9001 quality system in place, functioning at a high continuous-improvement level.
An SQF, cGMP, HACCP, and/or other suitable plan(s) in place to meet clients’ particular needs.
A functional accountability plan to make certain all plant and office personnel were trained and documented in their specific standard operating procedures and responsibilities.
An accounting plan that measured the subsequent cost of quality, with assigned leadership.
A follow-up mechanism to facilitate engagement and conversations regularly with all employees.
I hope you enjoy reviewing the supplier audit plan provided for your personal use via AICC NOW, and I look forward to any comments or suggestions you may have to improve this critical and ever-evolving qualification document to help you and your teams develop the most robust supply chain possible.
Tom Weber is president of WeberSource LLC and is AICC’s folding carton and rigid box technical advisor. Contact Tom directly at asktom@AICCbox.org.
