Procurement Case Study – Natural StoneProcurement

QUBE Procurement was tasked with finding suppliers of various types of natural stone that would dramatically improve on current quality of stone coming from China. The importers set a precedent by accepting 20-40% unusable product as the norm.

Challenge

Lack of familiarity with standards abroad and high demand within China meant suppliers were hesitant to make changes in their production processes

• Majority of suppliers did not understand strict requirements abroad. QUBE Procurement regularly removed 30% of product during inspection and packing of cargo. This was met with indifference by many suppliers as they could not understand how large variations in thickness resulted in very high installation costs in Australia
• Large demand in the domestic market meant factories had little incentive to improve standards. Suppliers were content producing domestic product with essentially no tolerance and did not require quality control or inspections

Result

QUBE Procurement worked with numerous suppliers over a period of 18 months and we were successful in helping them better understand the importance of controlling tolerances during production. We implemented quality checks at the beginning of production to reduce final rejection rates. Cut stone slabs were checked for imperfections as well as thickness prior to being cut to size. Through this process we dramatically reduced pre-inspection rejection rates from 30% + to 5-10%, with final rejection rates under 5%. Stone supplied by QUBE Procurement is now considered the industry leader.