How to approach a tier-1 supplier as a new component maker: learn their process before you pitch

You make springs and wire forms. A seat maker up the highway buys them, and you want in. So you drive to the gate with a brochure and ask for the purchase manager. Security takes the brochure and gives you a general email address. A tier-1 supplier does not buy from whoever turns up. It buys through a process: a commodity buyer, a supplier registration, a new-supplier assessment, and an RFQ when a new part is being sourced. Your first job is to find the person who buys your commodity and learn that process. The pitch comes after.

A tier-1 buys through a process, not a person

At many tier-1s purchase is split by commodity; ask whether yours is. One buyer handles castings, another forgings, another rubber parts, another springs and wire forms. That buyer keeps the list of approved suppliers for the commodity and decides who receives an RFQ.

Two other people shape the decision. The supplier quality engineer assesses a new supplier and later signs off its parts, and the development engineer owns the drawing for a new part and has views on who can make it.

And on some parts the tier-1 is not free to choose. The vehicle maker names the source, and no amount of selling to the tier-1 changes that. Find out early which parts in your commodity work this way.

Find your commodity, then the person who buys it

Use their word for what you make. A tier-1 may file your springs under "springs and wire forms", "spring steel parts" or "seating hardware". The commodity name is what gets your email to the right desk.

Then find the person. The supplier page on the tier-1's website names a registration route or a contact. Search for the commodity title on LinkedIn. Former employees of the tier-1, now at other units in the cluster, can tell you who handles what, and a vendor meet, if the tier-1 holds one, puts the buyer in a room with suppliers. Mapping the units themselves is in finding the next buyer in a cluster.

The first call: three questions, no price

Ring the commodity buyer with questions, not a quotation. A buyer who hears "I am not calling with a price" listens for a minute longer. Here is a script.

"Good morning. I am calling from a spring and wire-form unit in Dharuhera. I understand you look after the springs commodity. I am not calling with a quotation. May I ask three quick questions about how you add a new supplier?"

1. "How does a new supplier register with you: a portal, a form, or through your office?"
2. "What does your first assessment of a new supplier cover, and who carries it out?"
3. "When do new parts in this commodity go out for quotation, and how is the RFQ list decided?"

"Thank you. I will register now. May I send a one-page profile for your file, so you have it when the next RFQ comes up?"

Two things never go into this call: a price for a part you saw on their website, quoted without a drawing, and "any requirement?", which tells the buyer you have not done any homework.

What to write down after the call

Keep one page per tier-1, filled from the call and from what follows.

• Commodity name, exactly as they use it
• The buyer's name, and the supplier quality engineer's if mentioned
• Registration route and the papers it asks for
• What the assessment covers, in their words
• When RFQs in your commodity go out, and to whom
• Parts in your commodity whose source the vehicle maker decides
• Anything said about where current suppliers struggle

That page is your plan for this account, and it lets a colleague pick the account up if you are away.

Registration is the start, not the order

Registering puts you in the file, not on an RFQ list. Between the two sit the assessment of your plant, sometimes a sample, and a new programme in your commodity that needs a source.

So treat registration as the first step of a long sequence. Prepare for the assessment while you wait; what an automotive buyer asks in a supplier assessment lists what comes up. Keep in touch between RFQs only with real news, as set out in staying on the buyer's radar between RFQs.

Imagine a spring maker in Dharuhera

Imagine a maker of compression springs and wire forms in Dharuhera, Haryana, selling to two-wheeler spares makers and wanting to supply a seating tier-1 in Bawal. The details are illustrative. The owner left a brochure at the gate and then emailed a price list to the general purchase address. When nothing came back, the owner quoted a seat spring seen at a workshop, without a drawing.

The buyer ignored it: that spring was in production with an approved supplier. A quotation for a part nobody had asked about marked the firm as a vendor who did not know how the plant worked.

So the owner started again. A former employee of the tier-1 gave the name of the springs buyer, and the three-question call followed. Registration ran through a portal, and the supplier quality engineer would look at heat treatment control and load-test records. New seating programmes went to RFQ among registered suppliers who had cleared the assessment. One family of springs was sourced as the vehicle maker directed, so it was left alone. The owner registered and asked for the assessment. The engineer found no load-test record for the last three batches, because the owner had tested by hand and never written the readings down. The owner had to re-test a sample from each batch and keep a register from then on, which delayed the assessment by a few weeks. After that second visit the unit was accepted, and the next seating programme reached it as an RFQ. Winning the part is still a matter of price and capability.

When a tier-1 is the wrong first target

No quality records, and never been assessed? Start one level down. A tier-2 that supplies the tier-1 will develop you with lighter paperwork, and the record you build there counts later. At full capacity, wait: a tier-1 RFQ would only create a promise you cannot keep. And if the payment cycle of a vehicle programme would strain your cash, read aftermarket or OEM before you register anywhere.

Pick the one tier-1 you most want, find its word for your commodity, and make the three-question call this week. Reaching the right desk is decision-maker outreach, and how the wider trade buys is on the automotive component makers page. If a tier-1 near you is the account you most want, tell us what you need.