Characterizing Supplier Management Process Projects

Process projects provide a flexible framework for defining custom supplier lifecycle processes that align with your organization's needs. They enable you to tailor questionnaire content to specific suppliers, reuse modular questionnaires across different processes, and create custom processes for supplier lifecycle activities. These projects include modular questionnaires to collect necessary information and a workflow to guide decision-making.

Supplier management process projects are only available in sites that include SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance. Additionally, an administrator in your organization must set up the process project feature (SM-16798).

Your organization can use supplier management process projects to collect information about and decide the status of supplier qualifications, custom business processes, or process discontinuations. Due to their flexibility, process projects can be used at various stages in the SAP Ariba supplier lifecycle, as shown in the following diagram:

There are three types of process projects:

• Qualification

  If your organization uses process projects to qualify suppliers, administrators can create modular questionnaires tailored to specific combinations of commodities, regions, and departments. These projects often involve general questionnaires that apply to your organization’s overall qualification criteria and specific ones focusing on critical information or certifications for particular areas. These qualification processes may include both internal and external questionnaires.

• Miscellaneous Processes

  Miscellaneous processes don't need to match the standard SAP Ariba lifecycle stages, meaning administrators can customize them to your organization's needs. These processes facilitate supplier management activities using internal and external questionnaires relevant to each process.

• Discontinuation

  You disqualify existing qualification processes using the discontinuation process project, a separate process with a unique workflow and process statuses. This process might include internal questionnaires to gather information on why the qualification process is being discontinued. You can fully or partially discontinue existing qualification processes.