How do you calculate a supplier risk score?

Multiply three ratings on a common scale: severity of a supplier-caused failure, how often the defect occurs, and how likely you are to detect it before it reaches the line. With severity 6, occurrence 4, and detection 3 the underlying product is 72; this tool reports it on a normalized scale as 4.55.

What is a good supplier risk score for mining equipment?

Lower is always better. On a raw 1-1000 RPN, scores under 50 are typically accept-as-is, 50-100 warrant a containment or inspection plan, and anything above 100 should trigger a supplier corrective action request or re-sourcing for safety-critical brake, steering, or hydraulic parts.

Should I act on severity even if the score is low?

Yes. A severity of 9 or 10 on a brake or fire-suppression component means a field failure could injure a crew. Treat any high-severity supplier item as a control point even when occurrence and detection are favorable and the multiplied score looks small.

Severity vs occurrence: which matters more?

Severity reflects the consequence and you cannot design it away by buying differently; occurrence reflects how often the defect ships and can be reduced through supplier process control. For underground machines, severity sets the floor for attention while occurrence and detection set the priority order among the rest.

How is this different from a standard FMEA RPN?

It uses the same severity x occurrence x detection logic but scopes the failure mode to a purchased component and a named supplier, so the action is supplier-facing: an audit, a PPAP rerun, or a second source rather than a design or process change on your own line.

How often should I re-score suppliers?

Re-score after any field failure, a PPAP change, a plant move, or at least annually. A supplier's occurrence and detection scores drift as volumes change and as their process controls mature or decay.

Mining Vehicle & Underground Equipment calculator

Supplier Risk Score Calculator

Supplier Risk Score is a supply-chain adaptation of the FMEA risk priority number (RPN), used by procurement and supplier-quality engineers building haul trucks, LHDs, and underground utility vehicles. It multiplies how severe a supplier-caused failure would be by how often that supplier defect occurs and how reliably your incoming inspection catches it. Because an out-of-spec brake casting or a stalled hydraulic component can ground a multi-million-dollar machine and endanger a crew underground, OEMs and Tier-1 fabricators use this score to rank which suppliers get audits, dual-sourcing, or quarantined receiving. It turns a gut feeling about a shaky vendor into a number you can sort and act on.

What this calculator does

Estimate supplier risk for mining vehicle and underground equipment using production-ready inputs so teams can rank risks and decide which issue needs containment, controls, or escalation first.
Use it when supplier risk in mining vehicle and underground equipment needs a defensible ranking against other mining vehicle and underground equipment risks for the next review.
It computes a supplier risk priority number by multiplying severity, occurrence, and detection scores for a specific supplier or purchased part.

Formula used

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

Inputs explained

Severity of supplier failure on equipment build:
Likelihood the supplier defect occurs:
Chance defect is caught before installation:

How to use the result

Use it when ranking suppliers for audit, qualifying a new vendor for a mining drivetrain or brake component, or triaging which incoming-inspection points need tightening.
The score is ordinal, not absolute. Equal scores can hide a high-severity item that always deserves attention regardless of how rarely it occurs or how easily it is caught.

Current U.S. benchmarks

U.S. light vehicles sell at a 16.9 million annual rate (BEA, Jun 2026), up 4.1% from a year earlier, the volume signal for automotive supply chains.
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).
The U.S. has 11,691 transportation equipment establishments employing about 1,682,910 workers (Census County Business Patterns, 2023).

Common questions

How do you calculate a supplier risk score? Multiply three ratings on a common scale: severity of a supplier-caused failure, how often the defect occurs, and how likely you are to detect it before it reaches the line. With severity 6, occurrence 4, and detection 3 the underlying product is 72; this tool reports it on a normalized scale as 4.55.
What is a good supplier risk score for mining equipment? Lower is always better. On a raw 1-1000 RPN, scores under 50 are typically accept-as-is, 50-100 warrant a containment or inspection plan, and anything above 100 should trigger a supplier corrective action request or re-sourcing for safety-critical brake, steering, or hydraulic parts.
Should I act on severity even if the score is low? Yes. A severity of 9 or 10 on a brake or fire-suppression component means a field failure could injure a crew. Treat any high-severity supplier item as a control point even when occurrence and detection are favorable and the multiplied score looks small.
Severity vs occurrence: which matters more? Severity reflects the consequence and you cannot design it away by buying differently; occurrence reflects how often the defect ships and can be reduced through supplier process control. For underground machines, severity sets the floor for attention while occurrence and detection set the priority order among the rest.
How is this different from a standard FMEA RPN? It uses the same severity x occurrence x detection logic but scopes the failure mode to a purchased component and a named supplier, so the action is supplier-facing: an audit, a PPAP rerun, or a second source rather than a design or process change on your own line.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.