The group has appointed 13 main suppliers of general finishing services, sheetfed printing and envelopes, enhanced finishing and tooling in the second stage of its Strategic Supplier Alliance initiative, which was launched in 2001. Last year it reviewed the supply of paper, ink, consumables, transport and materials handling.

Polestars current outwork expenditure is 12m a year. It has agreed a memorandum of understanding with each of the 13 suppliers covering areas like quality, service, lead times, out of hours contacts and dispute resolution.

Its all geared towards improving quality and predictability, said purchasing director Chris Barker. If we become much more predictable everything can be managed better and the whole process is much smoother for us and our customers.

We have hundreds of outwork suppliers and our intention is to invest more time and effort in a smaller number of partners.

Barker said he didnt know how many outwork suppliers had been eliminated following the review. But when the Strategic Supplier Alliance initiative started two years ago Polestar had a total of 5,000 suppliers one for every employee, according to Barker.

He hopes to complete the review of OEMs by the end of the year.

Polestars supplier review
General finishing Andrews, WH Trade, Pelican, Peterlee, Glynn, Senator, Scorpio
Sheetfed printExcelprint, Hickling & Squires
Envelopes Tompla
Enhanced finishing Alcan (Celloglas)
Carton cutting dies Arden Dies
Label dies Kocher & Beck

Story by Gordon Carson