Co-Design of mechanical components: management of the relationship with suppliers

The meeting stems from the request of a CRIT member company that would like to deal with other member companies on managing relationships with supplier companies that deal with the co-design of mechanical components. In particular, the comparison and sharing of Best Practices should concern the following aspects considered critical:

• Understanding of product technical specifications. Very often it can happen that companies that take charge of a job are small and do not have the technical skills to better understand the needs of those who require a specific component with high level technical content.
• Legal issues. They can arise in the event that a finished product does not meet the characteristics defined by the final customer and that there may therefore be gaps, defects or inadequacies of suitability with respect to the original requests that the client is obliged to answer at the registered office, even if face of indirect responsibility.
• Process quality. The supplier is not always able to guarantee the repeatability of the production process to ensure the quality required by the customer.

The three problems described above can also be found simultaneously in small suppliers, used for highly specialized components but produced in a limited number of units. Both traditional sectors, such as foundry, and innovative sectors, such as the Additive Manufacturing sector, are characterized by these criticalities. The sharing of experiences, methodologies and protocols already operating in other industrial realities, through this meeting, can be a starting point for developing Best Practices on these issues.