What Kind of a Customer Are You

How easy is yourcompaiy to deal with Does your company pay their bills in a timely manner I heard of one compaiy where the first invoice that came in was thrown away. When the second invoice came in, it was thrown away too. If the compaity that was invoicing was persistent and sent a third invoice, it was then processed for payment. A practice like this hurts the supplier and does not create an attitude of cooperation. 

How frequently do yon change yonr order quantity In mai instances, it is not known nntil first thing in the morning what has to be shipped that day. This works fine if yon are dealing with a relatively stable order that might vary 10 percent from d to d. In a fully operational mass production system, this shoidd be the case. If the demand is going to vary more than 10 percent the supplier should be notified as soon as possible so the order can be made and shipped on time. 

One of the eritieal faetors for eustomers is to eommunicate speeifie needs. We must identify all of these needs whether they are specified or not to make sure they are satisfied with products or services. Many companies try to use salespeople as the mechanism for identifying customer needs. This is really not a reliable method as critical tolerances can be missed or critical characteristics may not be identified. 

An example of how to share customer needs is to develop a cross-compai r team that is product line-specific and work with all the details. I have seen this in the automobile industry where critical characteristics, final use, delivery, and cost are discrrssed. As this team functiorrs, all the issues are dug up and discussed so that problems can be formd and resolved before a major crisis develops. This is where the concept of qtrality function deployment (QFD) can be used. The ejqrlanation of QFD can be fourrd in tnary different books on quality concepts. 

The ISO 9001 2000 standard has a clause that reqrrires that customer reqrrirements be identified. This is not just using the customer s purchase order to meet these reqrrirements. In a very few cases using the cirstomer s ptrrchase order might work but in the majority of cases it will cause more problems later on as assumptions have to be made rrp ftorrL 

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