Most questionnaires can be answered to look excellent. The useful ones are answered to be accurate — and a good buyer can tell the difference in ten minutes.
A supplier quality questionnaire is a compression of an entire company into forty checkboxes. Compression loses information, and the information it loses first is nuance: what is certified, what is practice, what runs at a partner and what is aspirational.
We answer them with three levels made explicit. Certified means an accredited certificate covers it and we will send the certificate. Built to standard means design and routine testing follow the standard as engineering practice, without implying a product certificate. Managed partner process means the work runs at a qualified supplier under our engineering, incoming inspection and quality system — which is a real capability, just not our machine.
Buyers can pressure-test any questionnaire with two questions. Ask for the evidence behind one strong answer: a certificate, a procedure, a sample record. Then ask what the supplier does not do — a supplier who cannot name a limit is either extraordinary or unreliable, and the odds favour the second.
The reason to answer honestly is self-interested. An answer that wins a qualification and loses a program six months later costs more than the program was worth. It is cheaper to be declined early than to be removed late.
— GANI Contract Manufacturing engineering team