From my conversation with Roland Seckler of Ypsomed and Paul Grandy of Sphera. Read the full case study →
Ypsomed still checks every new supplier by hand. Its strategic purchasers send a risk questionnaire before the two companies start working together. Roland says it covers three things:
Finances: “We love to see a green light here,” he says, meaning no financial risk that could put the supplier in trouble.
Quality: an audited quality process that the supplier uses on its factory floor.
Delivery: proof the supplier can deliver what Ypsomed orders, in the right quality and volume, every time.
Roland says the check has to be thorough “from A to Z,” because Ypsomed’s pharma customers and notified bodies audit its critical suppliers too.
The questionnaire checks a supplier once, when it signs on. To watch suppliers after that, Ypsomed went looking for software that collects news about suppliers worldwide. Roland says Sphera was on the shortlist from the start. Here's how the rollout went, step by step.
The rollout
1. Visit a company that already uses it. Ypsomed visited another medtech company running Sphera and asked about its experience.
2. Run a small proof of concept. Roland calls it “very little.” It covered a few suppliers, so the team could learn how the system works.
3. Get IT to sign off. Ypsomed aligned the proof of concept with its IT team before going further.
4. Send the full supplier master file. After that, Ypsomed sent Sphera the whole master data file for its suppliers.
5. Set it up.
6. Train the team.
Roland says the whole thing took no more than ten days, including training. Only two groups worked on it: strategic purchasing and part of the IT team, which built the interface.
The training was partly a change of habit. Roland says his team had to move from their own notes on suppliers to the system and learn tools like its filters.
What to send before you start
Paul says the setup starts with your data. Here’s what Sphera asks for.
Only the suppliers that matter. Paul says some clients have tens of thousands of suppliers. Not all of them are critical, so not all of them need monitoring.
The factory address. “Typically we’re not monitoring risk at HQ,” Paul says. Sphera watches the site that makes your part. Ypsomed sent full addresses: company name, street, city and country.
Business context for each one. Paul asks three questions: What does the supplier provide? Which of your operations depend on it? How hard would it be to replace?
Out of the box or custom
Paul says customers start in one of two ways. Teams with a new risk process often use Sphera’s out-of-the-box risk profiles and build on them, which is the quicker start.
Ypsomed came with its own established method and wanted a fully custom setup from day one. Either way, Paul says, timing depends on how ready the data is and what has to connect to other systems.
Before you apply this
Ypsomed came in with a continuity plan, a clean supplier master file and its own risk method. If your supplier list lives in several spreadsheets, budget time to clean it first.
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