Suppliers, both for material as well as for outsourced processes, play a role in the overall quality of our products. In line with our zero defect aim, we take all the necessary steps to ensure that the same processes and procedures are applied across the entire supply chain even when this involves third parties for specific operations on ST products.
The steps involved in ensuring a seamless integration and equivalent quality can be summarized as:
- Supplier selection
- Evaluation
- Qualification
-
Monitoring and improvement
When extra manufacturing capacity or new specialized materials or processes are requested, the process to select the viable suppliers starts with a series of pre-requisites. Those include:
- ISO9001 / TS16949 certification of the Quality Management System
- Compliance to the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct (EICC)
- Environmental, Health and Safety certified management systems
- Process capability, data integration in ST flow capability
- Financial stability
Once a supplier has proven to fulfill the above prerequisite a more detailed evaluation is performed before engaging in the final qualification. This evaluation cover items such as:
- Maturity of Quality Management System
- Compliance to ST list of banned substances (see Ecopack page)
- Security
- Specific machine and process capability
- Materials specification and control methods/limits
- Process control methods
The suppliers’ lines are qualified in line with ST internal qualification methods. This entails both product qualifications and the necessary audits on site.
All along the cooperation with our supplier we do monitor their performance as well as the compliance of the product or service provided.
The methods to control the conformance of the products are aligned to those used in our internal manufacturing plants and makes extensive use of statistical process control and data analysis. The data collected is then used during regular reviews to highlight possible or necessary improvements in cooperation with our suppliers.
Furthermore, the performance of each supplier is reassessed with a supplier control method at least yearly. This method includes several measures like
- Quality performance indicators
- Technical performance indicators
- Perception of our internal customers
- Service and Quality results from our customers
- Data Integration with ST systems
- Compliance with prerequisite
- Results from audits
- Trends of performance versus previous evaluations
More Information and Contacts
For more information please contact your local sales representative or contact our technical support
