Key takeaways
- A customer scorecard, also called a supplier scorecard, is a periodic performance rating that a customer issues to a supplier, typically covering delivery, quality, and a general performance assessment.
- Most scorecards use a rolling average window, often twelve months, so a single bad month affects your rating long after the problem is fixed.
- Composite ratings are frequently capped by your lowest scoring category, which means one red metric cannot be offset by strong performance elsewhere.
- Documentation rejections, including incomplete or non compliant AS9102 First Article Inspection packages, are usually scored the same as hardware nonconformances.
- Corrective action responsiveness is often scored separately, with expectations around 24 hour containment and closure inside ten to thirty days.
- Scorecard data is 30 to 90 days old when you receive it, so improvement depends on internal leading indicators rather than reacting to the published score.
To ace a customer scorecard, get the scoring rubric and weightings in writing, confirm which delivery clock your customer measures against, prevent documentation rejections from counting as quality defects, respond to corrective action requests inside the required window, and score yourself monthly using your customer's own definitions so you can correct data errors before they enter the rolling average.
What is a customer scorecard in manufacturing?
A customer scorecard is a structured performance rating that an OEM or prime contractor issues to its suppliers, usually monthly or quarterly. It converts delivery and quality performance into a numeric score or a tier such as red, yellow, bronze, silver, and gold. The rating influences sourcing decisions, quote invitations, inspection level, and whether a supplier stays on the approved vendor list.
How is a supplier scorecard calculated?
Most supplier scorecards combine three inputs into a composite score:
| Component | What it usually measures | Common scoring method |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery | On time performance against the purchase order date | Percentage of line items received within the acceptance window |
| Quality | Accepted material versus rejected material | Parts per million defective, lot acceptance rate, or nonconformances per volume |
| General performance | Responsiveness, corrective action, program support | Subjective assessment scored by the supplier quality engineer or buyer |
Three mechanics matter more than the categories themselves:
- The averaging window. A rolling twelve month average carries a bad month for a full year. A three month window recovers faster and degrades faster.
- The weighting. Delivery and quality are rarely weighted equally, and the subjective category can carry more weight than suppliers expect.
- The composite cap. Many systems limit your overall tier to your worst individual category, so a red in one area cannot be averaged away.
What metrics appear on a manufacturing customer scorecard?
The metrics most commonly scored are:
- On time delivery rate
- Quality acceptance rate or defective parts per million
- Number of nonconformance reports or escapes
- Corrective action response and closure timeliness
- Corrective action effectiveness, measured as recurrence inside a monitoring window
- Documentation and submission accuracy, including First Article Inspection and certification packages
- Responsiveness to requests for information, quotes, and change notices
- Percentage of ordered items shipped
- Lead time, or the duration from order to delivery
- Percentage of defect-free products sent
Why do suppliers lose delivery points even when they ship on time?
Because the shipping date and the scored date are often different. Confirm the following with your customer in writing:
- Ship date or receipt date. If the metric is based on receipt at the customer dock, transit time counts against you.
- The acceptance window. Early deliveries outside a defined number of days are scored as misses on many programs.
- Original or revised purchase order date. Some systems continue scoring against the original date after a pull in.
- Customer caused delay coding. Late furnished material, a mid build drawing revision, a buyer hold, or a delayed source inspection can usually be excluded, but only if flagged at the time it happens.
Why do documentation errors count against your quality score?
Because a receiving organization writes a nonconformance report for a defective document the same way it writes one for a defective part, and both flow into the same quality metric.
Common documentation rejections include a characteristic on the balloon drawing that does not match the AS9102 Form 3 line item, a material certification referencing a superseded specification, a Form 1 missing sub tier supplier detail, and a package submitted against the wrong drawing revision.
What triggers a new First Article Inspection under AS9102?
A full or partial First Article Inspection is required when any of the following occur:
- Initial production of a new part number
- A design change affecting fit, form, or function
- A change in manufacturing source, process, inspection method, location of manufacture, or tooling
- A change to the numerical control program or a translation to another medium
- A natural or man made event that may adversely affect the manufacturing process
- A lapse in production of two years, or another period specified by the customer
Suppliers are cited for missing a required First Article Inspection more often than for failing one.
How quickly do you need to respond to a supplier corrective action request?
A common expectation structure is:
| Stage | Typical window |
|---|---|
| Acknowledgement and containment | 24 hours |
| Interim report with initial root cause direction | 3 to 5 days |
| Verified closure with objective evidence | 10 to 30 days |
Three practices improve this metric:
- Acknowledge the request immediately, before the investigation is complete. The clock starts at issuance, not at assignment.
- Do not submit "operator error" as a root cause. Rejected responses reopen the clock and count against timeliness.
- Track recurrence. Many customers measure the percentage of corrective actions with no repeat inside a defined monitoring window.
How do you improve a supplier scorecard rating?
- Obtain the rubric. Request the scoring guide, weightings, averaging window, and color thresholds from your supplier quality engineer.
- Align your promise dates to the customer's delivery clock. Set ERP dates against the metric your customer actually scores.
- Validate documentation before submission. Check balloon to form consistency, revision level, certifications, and customer specific flowdown clauses prior to shipping the package.
- Standardize corrective action response. Use a fixed template covering containment, root cause, corrective action, verification, and evidence, with an owner and a due date at each stage.
- Score yourself monthly. Build an internal scorecard using your customer's definitions and reconcile it against their portal data.
- Dispute data errors contemporaneously. Misattributed escapes, wrong purchase order line receipts, and uncoded customer delays are correctable with evidence gathered at the time.
- Report progress to your customer. Send a monthly summary of shipments, rejections, open corrective actions, and process changes.
What causes a supplier to be downgraded or removed from an approved vendor list?
Common triggers include sustained red performance in a scored category, a repeat escape after a corrective action was verified as closed, a missed or falsified certification, failure to respond to corrective action requests inside the required window, and a quality escape that reaches the customer's customer.
Making scorecards work for you
GroundControl helps aerospace and advanced manufacturing teams generate AS9102C First Article Inspection reports from automatically extracted drawing characteristics, validate customer flowdown requirements before submission, and manage supplier corrective actions with traceable closure. See how it works.