4.1 This practice is intended to be used by cannabis or hemp operators, or both, to establish good supplier lifecycle management practices.

4.1.1 Without proper oversight, the quality and reliability of supplied materials, equipment, parts, software, or services can degrade. This can create issues that directly impact the operation's performance and remain undetected until customers experience a problem.

4.1.2 Early identification and mitigation of risks within the supply chain are crucial to controlling costs and minimizing potential impacts on operations, customer experience, and business reputation. In general, costs are reduced when issues are prevented early and upstream in the supply chain.

4.2 This practice applies to the cannabis or hemp horticulture, agriculture, processing, manufacturing, testing, and distribution operators and the many suppliers that provide materials, equipment, parts, software, or services to these operations.

4.3 This practice provides operations and consultants supporting operations with the actions required to implement good supply and supplier management practices.

4.4 Any supply chain operator can use this practice to conduct an internal gap assessment and risk analysis to identify opportunities for improvement.

4.5 Certification bodies can use the standard to develop supplier audit programs.

4.6 Section 5 provides details on the supplier lifecycle management process that includes the following seven activities:

4.6.1 Supply and supplier information management.

4.6.2 Supply identification and specifications.

4.6.3 Supplier options, evaluation, and selection.

4.6.4 Supplier onboarding.

4.6.5 Supplier performance and risk management.

4.6.6 Supplier relationship management.

4.6.7 Supplier offboarding.

4.7 To implement supplier management, follow the process in Sections 5 and 6. Start by applying the principles in this practice to a few supplies and suppliers and work through all of the steps in the process. Then repeat the process for more supplies or refine the details on supplies that are already addressed.

4.8 This practice applies to critical supplies that require rigorous management and non-critical supplies that don't. It applies to large multi-location operations with a large staff and complex communication needs, and small single facility operations with a small staff where communication is simple. The key to applying this practice is documenting the operation's procedures and specific methods along with a valid justification when a step is modified or simplified to meet the intent of a step in Sections 5 and 6 as it applies to a small operation or a non-critical supply.