A buyer's activities to improve a supplier's capabilities, improving quality and delivery performances.

• A. Supplier Development
• B. Early Supplier Involvement
• C. Value Engineering
• D. Supplier Recognition

Answer: (A)

Supplier development is about a buyer actively helping a supplier raise its capabilities to deliver higher quality and better on-time performance. It involves collaborative efforts like technical support, training, process improvements, sharing best practices, and establishing joint improvement plans and performance metrics. This ongoing work aims to build the supplier’s capacity so they can meet the buyer’s requirements consistently over time.

Early involvement of suppliers focuses on including suppliers in design decisions to influence manufacturability and cost, not on broad capability growth. Value engineering targets function and cost reductions, often within the product or process design, rather than systemic supplier capability improvement. Supplier recognition is about rewarding good performance, not developing capabilities.