Both electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers periodically rate the performance of suppliers to make sure quality, delivery, and technology requirements are met. However, rating suppliers is often more challenging for EMS providers, because they have many more suppliers than OEMs. EMS providers often use suppliers on the approved vendor lists (AVLs) of their OEM customers.

For instance, Jabil Circuit, an electronics design, production, and product management services company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, has about 14,000 suppliers overall, and about 7,000 “active” suppliers—suppliers that Jabil does business with regularly. Of those, there are about 300 strategic suppliers and of that about 150 that Jabil rates using score cards on a regular basis, usually quarterly.

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