In the management of the vendor relationship, consider the following ongoing potential vendor management items as applicable to contract employees, referral laboratories, IT systems, products (supplies/reagents), or any type of contract work:
- On-boarding and licenses (e.g., contract employees, vendors working on site, referral laboratories)
- Approach for recalls and incidents (nonconforming events)
- Inferior product
- Performance reviews
- Oversight at all stages
- Off-boarding (ending an agreement)
The management of the contracted relationship is often documented by the laboratory representative (contracting officer representative) or quality manager. In the federal government, the laboratory staff selected, trained, and certified as contracting officer representatives (COR) are responsible for ensuring that vendors/contractors meet the commitment of their contracts.15
The following tools are useful in working through problems, recalls, incidents, or nonconforming events:
SWOT analysis of vendor relationship
A SWOT analysis is a method used in strategic planning. Correctly performed, it is a way to "brainstorm" while listing and categorizing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats encountered during a specific project. Internal factors and external factors, positive versus negative aspects are diagrammed during a SWOT analysis. This educational offering is not intended to teach how to create a SWOT analysis. Rather, the objective of this teaching is to offer the use of SWOT as a tool for managing different aspects of vendor relationships.16 For example, SWOT might be used to:
- Compare strengths and weaknesses of potential suppliers (vendors).
- Assess a current vendor relationship (or reassess after a specified period).
Root cause analysis
In the case of a vendor recall or nonconforming event involving a vendor's goods or the vendor relationship, the use of the root cause analysis (RCA) tool may be required.17 A RCA digs deeper into an incident by probing – asking repeated “why” questions about the contributing factors. In its simplest form, this technique is referred to as the “five why’s".18 Chances are the laboratory's quality manager has utilized RCA in the past; the facility may have a specific procedure for performing one - using CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) or TJC (The Joint Commission) templates.
