Supplier base consolidation.
Fewer suppliers can mean better pricing, fewer quality problems, and less work for your buyers. We review every supplier on your list, decide who stays in each category, and move parts and spend without interrupting production.
- 125+supplier base rationalized
- 35%supplier base consolidation
- 2,500+SKUs in an aerospace and defense supply base
From our founder’s operating roles. Not client results.
Why supplier consolidation stalls.
A long supplier list grows one urgent order at a time. Cutting it back stalls for four reasons.
Tail spend
Many suppliers carry a few orders a year each. Every one still needs a vendor record, insurance, quality approval, and buyer time.
No common scorecard
Without the same delivery and quality measures for every supplier, the decision about who stays turns into opinion.
Fear of single source
Teams keep extra suppliers as insurance, even where one qualified secondary source for critical parts would cover the risk.
Transfers that break production
Parts moved without first article inspection, a tooling transfer, and a last-time buy from the exiting supplier create shortages.
How we make supplier consolidation decisions.
Every supplier is scored on the same measures from your ERP and quality records, then grouped by category and capability.
- Spend
- Annual spend, PO lines, and part count per supplier
- Delivery
- Line-level on-time delivery against confirmed promise dates
- Quality
- Rejections, corrective actions, and escapes by supplier
- Cost
- Price trends and total cost by part family
- Capability
- Processes, equipment, and certifications such as AS9100, ISO 9001, and Nadcap
- Capacity
- Room to absorb transferred volume
- Risk
- Single-source parts, financial health, and geographic concentration
- Decision
- Grow, keep, hold as secondary source, or exit, by category
How it works.
Supplier review
Pull spend, delivery, and quality history for every active supplier and clean up duplicate vendor records.
You receive: Supplier census with scorecard data
Category decisions
Group suppliers by category and capability, then decide who to grow, keep, hold as a secondary source, or exit.
You receive: Consolidation plan by category
Transfer
Quote moving parts with retained suppliers, run first article inspection, move tooling, and place last-time buys with exiting suppliers.
You receive: Transfer schedule with owners and dates
Lock in
Put long-term agreements on the consolidated volume and track retained suppliers on a delivery and quality scorecard.
You receive: Agreements and scorecards for retained suppliers
From operating experience.
- 125+ suppliers rationalized and the base consolidated 35%, with spend concentrated, quality issues reduced, and strategic partnerships strengthened.
Our founder delivered these results while running supply chain organizations between 2017 and 2026. They are operator results, not client results. See all results
What you receive.
- Supplier census with spend, delivery, and quality by supplier
- Supplier scorecard applied to the full base
- Consolidation plan with grow, keep, secondary, and exit decisions
- Part transfer schedule and qualification plan
- Negotiated pricing on consolidated volume
- Vendor master cleanup in your ERP
Standards, contracts, and systems our founder has worked within
- Supplier scorecard
- Spend cube
- First article inspection
- AS9100
- ISO 9001
- Nadcap
- Infor LN
- Shoptech E2
- Fishbowl
Supplier consolidation questions.
Does supplier consolidation add single-source risk?
It can if it is done by spend alone. We keep a qualified secondary source for components where one supplier would carry too much risk, and we check capacity before moving volume.
How do you decide which suppliers to keep?
We score every supplier on delivery, quality, cost, and capacity from the same data, then choose the strongest supplier in each category. Capability and certifications decide close calls for special processes and critical parts.
How many suppliers should we have?
There is no right number. The right base covers each category with suppliers that perform, plus secondary sources where risk calls for them. The count follows from those decisions.
What happens to parts made by suppliers we exit?
Each part gets a plan: transfer to a retained supplier with first article inspection, a last-time buy to bridge the move, and tooling returned or transferred where you own it.
How long does supplier consolidation take?
It depends on how many parts move and how long qualification takes for each. We plan the transfer category by category so production is not interrupted.
Start with a 30‑minute conversation.
Describe what you buy and where the problem is. We reply to every message directly.