A few months ago, I wrote about the importance of understanding your customers’ requirements. We looked at requirements that exceed the traditional scope of product specifications such as labeling, packaging and documentation.This month, we’ll take a look at how we communicate our requirements to our suppliers, which is the flipside of the customer-supplier relationship. Consider how frustrating it is for you when a customer complains that you haven’t delivered the product they anticipated and you realize there were several expectations that hadn’t been adequately defined. The situation is awkward because you both know that, first, the customer didn’t clearly state the requirement, and second, you made some inappropriate assumption due to the lack of clarity. In other words, you guessed.

Now ponder your supplier’s situation. The roles are reversed, but the script is relatively unchanged.

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