Solutions / Sourcing · File 01 · Supplier qualification
A supplier decision takes an afternoon to make and a season to reverse. Certification checked live against the issuing registry, cost compared at your own quantity, and the whole thing written up as a file somebody else can audit.
A supplier decision takes an afternoon to make and a season to reverse.
The file
Sourcing is framed as a cost comparison. The expensive mistakes are about how hard it is to change your mind afterwards.
01Minimums
A unit price is quoted at a quantity, and the quantity is the commitment. A better price at a minimum you cannot sell through is a worse decision wearing a lower number.
The comparison that matters is landed cost at YOUR quantity, which is rarely the quantity on the quote.
02Tooling
Anything paid for once and held by the supplier, a last, a mould, a fit block, converts a supplier choice into a switching cost. The switching cost is invisible until you try to switch.
Who owns the tooling is a contract question that gets settled at the quote stage or not at all.
03Exposure
A country decision carries a regulatory regime with it, and the obligation follows the product into your market rather than staying with the factory.
The evidence has to survive a dual source. A dossier naming one site stops being true the season you add a second.
Four things this page is for
Each one starts where a sourcing week starts, and ends in a document you can open.
SUP-01 // Certification
The certificate you were shown has expired.
GOTS and OEKO-TEX read against the issuing registry rather than a PDF somebody emailed. Status, licence number, scope and validity, each with a date on it.
SUP-02 // Shortlist
Finding a mill, qualifying it and pricing it are three different jobs.
A spec becomes a ranked, risk-scored shortlist, the RFQ goes out, and the quotes come back on one basis instead of six.
SUP-03 // Exposure
The country decides the duty, and the duty decides the margin.
The chain mapped tier by tier with the unmapped nodes named, against bilateral trade values from UN Comtrade. Concentration and duty exposure before the order, not after.
SUP-04 // Evidence
The sustainability claim has to be evidenced now, not described.
Footprint computed from the real materials list rather than a category average, published as a passport a buyer or a regulator can resolve.
Where it comes from
Silk in Como, worsted in Biella, recycled wool in Prato, knit in Porto, organic cotton in İzmir and Tirupur, selvedge in Osaka, alpaca in Lima. Tier 1 is a name on an invoice; tier 2 and tier 3 are a map - and the question that actually decides a season is which of these places can make your fabric, to which certification, at your volume.
Lodet AI searches mills, factories, biomaterial pioneers and certified suppliers across these regions, verifies GOTS, GRS, OEKO-TEX and Bluesign claims against the issuing body, and returns a dossier you can send — with the certificate numbers and the expiry dates in it.
Read a supplier dossier
Mill, certification, provenance and the inspection record - the documents you would actually send a supplier, downloadable here.
Material Dossier - Halstead & Roe AW27 Suiting & Overcoating
PDF · page 1 of 9
Switch deliverable
The qualification
Finding a supplier, costing one and clearing one are three different jobs, and only the first one is a search.
Built for/Design & product, Sourcing & production, Sustainability & compliance
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