bernievn,

supplier evaluation is an intergral part of strategy formulation.Not just strategy but sustaineable relatioships/ external collaborations.Once you have mapped all your commodities groups and your Bills of materials,Conducted your spent analysis you will then have to decide on your contracting strategy.At this point it is impotant to ensure that you short list the right suppliers to be competable and be able to support your strategy to drive value.The supplier must be screaned for capability to can fulfill contractual obligations.Once you have contracted,obviously depending on commodity criticallity and cost ,you would then have regular meetings with your supplier to ensure that you continue to unlock value in the chain.

Maybey for strategic commodities this would be more relevent but every company should ensure that every supplier is evaluated before they are loaded on the data base and those companies needing development are actually assited financially,technically etc.

What is of importance is that you need to have total visibility of your supply chain from routine to strategic commodities and their vendors.