Approved Supplier List
All procurement organizations maintain lists that associate the items and services they buy with the companies who supply them, either formally or informally. Data stored in a controlled, global repository containing relevant details about each ship-from/ship-to/item relationship, is known as an Approved Supplier List (ASL). This repository includes information about all suppliers with business statuses ranging from fully Approved (the supplier has demonstrated the ability to satisfy rigorous quality, cost, and delivery requirements over a sustained period) to Debarred (no business is allowed with this supplier), or New if you have never placed a purchase order with the supplier. Each status has four business rules associated with it. You can prevent or allow certain business rules for each status, change the name of a status, or create a status of your own.
In the Approved Supplier List window, you also specify the blanket purchase order or catalog quotation for an item-supplier combination. See: Defining the Supplier and Commodity/Item Combination. See: Defining the Supplier/Item Attributes.
See Also
Defining Approved Supplier Statuses
Overview of the Approved Supplier List
Supply Chain Planning
Automatic Sourcing
ASL Repository Maintenance
Through maintenance of the Approved Supplier List repository the following goals are realized:
- Supports Supplier Certification programs by providing a single store of information regarding a supplier's current status.
- Helps design engineers achieve higher quality designs at a lower total cost through the re-use of preferred suppliers in new designs. Avoids supply base proliferation or unnecessary design dependence on 'difficult' suppliers.
- Eliminates redundant sourcing efforts within departments, and across organizations. Facilitates a more global approach to contract negotiation.
- Provides immediate procurement visibility when a supplier is assigned an unfavorable status. This 'early warning' can help prevent problem replication in multiple organizations.
- Complies with external Quality System process requirements like ISO 9001/9002.
- Provides storage for general data attributes that are unique to the supplier/item intersection.
- Maintains lists of supplier 'candidates' by commodity or item for future consideration.
ASL Business Needs
Using Oracle Purchasing Approved Supplier List, you can:
- Set approval/certification status at the appropriate level for your business. For example, approve a supplier for a given commodity (e.g. 'Office Supplies') for expense purchases while approving a specific supplier/site for each production item.
- Approve suppliers (they perform their own manufacturing), distributors (they represent manufacturers), and manufacturers (they manufacture items marketed and sold by distributors).
- Define global or local ASL entries. All organizations should be able to specify their own attributes (information about the supplier/item relationship) even if the supplier/item status is defined as a global record. This enables individual ship-to-organizations to determine, for example, whether they are ready to perform supplier scheduling, their purchasing unit of measure, their default item price, etc.
- Link the primary supplier item number with your internal item number. This designated item will default to Purchase Order and Requisition lines.
- Specify a Review By date indicating a proactive, planned review of the business with a longstanding supplier partner.
- Review ASL information in a flexible inquiry format.
- Define your own approval statuses and associate them with specific business rules.
- Control procurement activity by preventing purchase order approval or supplier schedule confirmation for certain supplier/item combinations. Optionally provide specific individuals with an override capability for exception buys.
- Control ASL access and modification.
- Control whether Sourcing Rules must be comprised of approved suppliers. Quickly create Sourcing Rules based on your ASL entry.
- Define reference information for the supplier/item combination.
- Define ASL entries quickly using existing entries as a template.
See Also
Overview of Supplier Scheduling
Sourcing Rules and Bills of Distributions
Bucket Patterns
Defining Supplier Lists
Defining Ship-to Organization Level Defaults and Controls
Defining the Supplier/Item Attributes
Defining Approved Supplier Statuses
View Approved Suppliers
Defining the Supplier and Item/Commodity Combination
Defining Sourcing Rules
Defining Bills of Distributions