How do you calculate a supplier risk score?

Multiply severity by occurrence by detection. With severity 7, occurrence 4, and detection 3, the raw product is 84, which this tool scales to a comparable 4.95 risk score for ranking against other suppliers.

What is a good supplier risk score?

Lower is better, and the figure is only meaningful relative to your other suppliers on the same scale. Rank all components, then focus mitigation on the top tier; a high score from severity 7 means a failure would be serious even if it is rare.

What do severity, occurrence, and detection mean here?

Severity is how damaging the failure is if it reaches the field, occurrence is how frequently the supplier issue arises, and detection is how hard it is to catch before shipment, where a high detection score means low ability to catch it.

Why multiply the three scores instead of adding them?

Multiplying makes the score blow up when all three are high and keeps it low when any one is well controlled, which is the intent of an RPN: a defect that is severe, frequent, and hard to detect is far more dangerous than one with a single high dimension.

How do I lower a supplier's risk score?

Attack the most controllable dimension. You rarely change severity, but dual-sourcing lowers occurrence and adding incoming inspection or supplier process controls lowers the detection score, both of which cut the product directly.

Supplier risk score vs a full FMEA: what is the difference?

This is the RPN calculation at the heart of an FMEA, applied to suppliers. A full FMEA also documents failure modes, causes, current controls, and recommended actions; this tool gives you the comparable number to prioritize that deeper work.

Fitness Equipment & Connected Exercise Hardware calculator

Supplier Risk Calculator

Supplier risk scoring borrows the FMEA risk-priority-number method to rank which component suppliers most threaten a fitness equipment program. Connected exercise hardware depends on a long tail of vendors, from motor and PCBA suppliers to touchscreen and firmware partners, and a single weak link can stall a launch or trigger a field recall. This calculator multiplies a severity score (how bad the failure is), an occurrence score (how often the supplier issue happens), and a detection score (how hard it is to catch before it ships) into one comparable risk number. Supply-chain and quality engineers use it to prioritize audits, dual-sourcing decisions, and incoming-inspection effort across the bill of materials.

What this calculator does

Rank supplier risk for fitness equipment components using severity, occurrence, and detection scores.
Use it when reviewing suppliers for frames, motors, belts, displays, control boards, sensors, pedals, bearings, packaging, or connected hardware modules.
It multiplies the severity, occurrence, and detection scores into a single supplier risk priority number for ranking vendors against each other.

Formula used

Supplier Risk score = supplier issue severity score × supplier issue occurrence score × supplier issue detection score
Use the same scoring scale across comparable supplier risks.

Inputs explained

Supplier issue severity score:
Supplier issue occurrence score:
Supplier issue detection score:

How to use the result

Use it when triaging which suppliers to audit, dual-source, or inspect more tightly, and when comparing risk across components on the same scoring scale.
The result is only a relative ranking on a consistent scale, not a probability or dollar figure, and multiplying ordinal scores can overweight one extreme dimension.

Current U.S. benchmarks

Steel mill PPI stands at 348.53 (BLS, May 2026), up 6.7% from a year earlier. New factory orders are up 2.3% year over year (Census).

Common questions

How do you calculate a supplier risk score? Multiply severity by occurrence by detection. With severity 7, occurrence 4, and detection 3, the raw product is 84, which this tool scales to a comparable 4.95 risk score for ranking against other suppliers.
What is a good supplier risk score? Lower is better, and the figure is only meaningful relative to your other suppliers on the same scale. Rank all components, then focus mitigation on the top tier; a high score from severity 7 means a failure would be serious even if it is rare.
What do severity, occurrence, and detection mean here? Severity is how damaging the failure is if it reaches the field, occurrence is how frequently the supplier issue arises, and detection is how hard it is to catch before shipment, where a high detection score means low ability to catch it.
Why multiply the three scores instead of adding them? Multiplying makes the score blow up when all three are high and keeps it low when any one is well controlled, which is the intent of an RPN: a defect that is severe, frequent, and hard to detect is far more dangerous than one with a single high dimension.
How do I lower a supplier's risk score? Attack the most controllable dimension. You rarely change severity, but dual-sourcing lowers occurrence and adding incoming inspection or supplier process controls lowers the detection score, both of which cut the product directly.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.