Sub-tier supply chain visibility assessment (Multi-Tier Mapping)

Sending assessments to sub-tier suppliers can be cumbersome if you do not have any direct connection with them, however, to achieve deeper sub-tier visibility it is imperative to work with suppliers to establish lines of communication.

Below are some of the best practices and important points that companies may have to focus before planning the sub-tier supply chain visibility assessments:

1. Share a common message with Tier-1 & sub-tier suppliers from higher management (preferably CPO of your organization) explaining the objectives and importance of supply chain visibility.
2. Organize a common webinar for tier-1 suppliers and their sub-tiers to explain to them the importance of supply chain risk management as well as the benefits of participating in the assessment process.
3. All of the participating suppliers receive no cost access to event notifications which additionally helps them take mitigating actions if any of their own sites are impacted. This can ultimately help make sub-tier suppliers more resilient as well.
4. Train all of the suppliers proactively on SCV completion and how to respond to the event notifications.
5. Involve your Tier-1 suppliers in the process and request your tier-1 suppliers to encourage their suppliers to share supply chain visibility information.
6. Encourage Tier-1 suppliers to provide mandatory sub-tier information such as sub-tier supplier contact details, sub-tier part numbers, and sub-tier part sourcing. Without this  information, customers will not be able to send a sub-tier supply chain visibility assessment.
7. Add mandatory language in the supplier contract to share sub-tier visibility & mapping information.
8. Ask Resilinc for the partner welcome kit and sub-tier SCV guidelines.
9. Inform Resilinc well in advance about the plans to reach out sub-tier suppliers. This can allow the Resilinc team to strategize and plan for the assessment project which may help achieve better response rate.

Note – The responses from sub-tier suppliers are typically slower than the tier-1 suppliers since there is no contract or relationship between the two parties.

The Resilinc Supplier Success team works with thousands of suppliers each day to build a professional relationship with suppliers. The Resilinc PRT also leverages sub-tier contacts from past interactions to complete the assessments.