Q: The company tells me to find new suppliers and compare three quotes — so why does it end up a mess every time, and in the end I go back to the old contact anyway?

A: Because “adding a supplier” is itself a hidden cost. Credibility spent, getting to know each other, background checks, internal administration — by the time these four hurdles are cleared, you still have not placed an order. And with every round, the list of suppliers you can use shrinks by another batch.

The truly easy approach is not finding more suppliers; it is making the number you need to find smaller.

→ Plant-wide consolidated purchasing, rewriting the rules of cost｜Jiahon Enterprise Group

1. One supplier usually solves only one thing

As an MRO buyer, you never have just one item on hand. Thermocouple wire needs one supplier, stencil wiper paper another, and solder masking tape yet another. Each supplier covers only so much; solve this one today, and tomorrow you still have to go another round.

The problem is that company purchasing rules usually require quotations from two or three suppliers. The rule is well meant — but in practice it means that every time you bring in a new item, you have to find three new suppliers and take them all through a full round of the process at the same time.

The more varied the items, the longer the supplier list you have to maintain. The longer the list, the more exhausting it gets. This is not because you are not trying hard enough; it is a structural problem.

2. Your quotation credibility is being used up — by you

Few people say this out loud, but every buyer knows it.

You ask for quotes, compare prices, choose one to order from, and the other two simply never hear back. Next time you have a need, you go to the same group again — sometimes they take it, sometimes they reply slowly, or the price is somehow noticeably higher. The time after that, nobody answers the phone at all.

The reason is simple: suppliers are doing their own accounting. Quoting has a cost, back-and-forth communication has a cost, and if eight times out of ten it comes to nothing, they will move you down their priority list.

And the result? Every so often you have to develop a new supplier list, because the old ones no longer pay much attention to you. Find new ones, use them up, find new ones again — how many times have you repeated this cycle?

3. Before adding a supplier, you have to clear four hurdles

Even once you have decided to bring in a new supplier, “evaluation” alone takes a big chunk of your time.

Hurdle 1

Can you communicate?

Call them and chat for five minutes first. You say PR, PO, MRO — do they understand? Some very local small shops have no idea of even these basic terms, so every later conversation needs one more layer of explanation. This is not prejudice; it is the real cost of the work.

And poor communication carries another risk — the specification itself is easy to get wrong. Thermocouple wire has questions of length and durability: all of it is called K Type, but life can differ greatly between makers. Stencil wiper paper has questions of paper width, paper length, and material, and PP woven paper wipes completely differently from other materials. 3M 7413T solder masking tape has width specifications, and an even more troublesome problem — there are many imitations on the market that look almost the same but differ completely in heat resistance and adhesion, and you only find the problem after applying it and running it through the oven. If understanding diverges at any one link, it means sending samples again and going through the process again.

Want to compare specifications directly? Look here:

Thermocouple wire｜Stencil wiper paper｜3M 7413T solder masking tape

Hurdle 2

Are they easy to reach?

With some suppliers, the salesperson is there today and gone tomorrow, or one question gets passed around three departments. Before formally bringing them in, you always have to confirm: can this person be reached when it is urgent?

Hurdle 3

What is the company’s footing?

Search the company name on Google and look at its size, how long it has existed, and whether there are bad reviews. You are not being overcautious; you are doing basic credit checking on behalf of the company.

Hurdle 4

When something goes wrong, will they run?

A plant cannot avoid problems, and neither can a supplier. Those who pound their chests every day about how good they are are the ones to watch.

★ Key line

The really important question is not “have they ever slipped up” — it is “how do they handle it after they slip up.”

The situation you especially do not want to meet is when the other party takes the money, a problem arises, the phone stops getting through, they do not pay the compensation they owe, and they make every excuse that it is not their responsibility. Meet it once and you will know — that moment is what really makes your knees go weak.

4. Before the first order, several rounds of internal meetings

After the four hurdles, you think this one will do. But it is not over.

Next you have to prepare material for your manager explaining why to bring in this supplier, what the terms are, and whether there is a backup plan. There may be a meeting, waiting for your manager’s time, a few more documents to supply, then waiting for sign-off.

All of this is time. All of this time has a cost. And at this point, you still have not placed a single order with that supplier.

5. You think one more supplier is just one more line

Do the math. Suppose your plant works with 20 suppliers and the purchasing department has 5 people. That is not 20 + 5 = 25 relationships; between every person, every item, and every supplier there is a set of communication understandings, acceptance logic, document formats, and problem-handling arrangements to work out.

The real complexity is N × M, not N + M

Figure: Traditional point-to-point｜N × M = chaos; Jiahon consolidated purchasing｜N + M = clarity.

Each new supplier adds not one to the complexity — it multiplies across the whole purchasing team.

The real complexity is N × M, not N + M. Each new supplier is not one more line for the department — it is one more line for every person. The complexity grows exponentially, but your headcount does not grow with it.

Experienced buyers all know one thing: a longer supplier list does not make you stronger — it makes things harder to manage.

6. The way out of the cycle: make the number of suppliers you need to find smaller

The cost of every hurdle above — credibility spent, getting to know each other, confirming specifications, background checks, internal administration — is real; it is just that no one has worked it out for you.

There is one thing that can bring these costs down sharply: one window covering most of your MRO items.

This is not asking you to put all your eggs in one basket. It is moving you from “going through the whole onboarding process again for every item” to “trust with this window is already built, so bringing in a new item is an extension, not starting from scratch.”

What you save is the time of clearing the four hurdles each time. What you save is quotation credibility no longer being spent bit by bit. The key is: you finally do not have to enter that cycle again.

Want to try it?

A new era of plant-wide consolidated purchasing｜Jiahon Enterprise Group cares about you

Concepts referenced in this article

Oliver Williamson: Transaction Cost Economics (1985)｜EY: COO supply chain challenges report｜Jiahon internal statistics on customer onboarding cases

The “Jiahon’s Unique Value Explained” series

Stood Up by Yet Another New Supplier? Jiahon Helps You Break the Vicious Cycle of Procurement