Qualification answers one question: if this goes wrong, does this company have the capability and the incentive to fix it? Everything below is a way of getting at that.
Four layers, in order
- Legal. The business licence: scope of activity, registered capital, how long the company has existed. Public and quick.
- Capability. Do they own the machines your product needs, or do they subcontract the critical step? Ask which parts they do not make.
- Capacity. Your order as a share of their monthly output. Too large and you are a risk to them; too small and you are invisible.
- Behaviour. How they answer a hard technical question, and how they behave when you point out a problem in a sample.
The layer people skip
The fourth. It is the only one that predicts what happens under pressure, and it is the only one you cannot outsource to a report. Deliberately raise a small problem during the sample phase and watch: a supplier who explains the cause is worth more than one who simply apologises and replaces it.