How do you calculate a supplier risk score?

Multiply the three ratings: severity x occurrence x detection. With a severity of 6, occurrence of 4, and detection of 3, the supplier RPN is 72 on a standard 1-10 scale (the tool normalizes this against your chosen scale).

What is a good supplier risk score for medical sensor components?

On a 1-10 scale the theoretical range is 1-1000. For Class II wearable components, treat anything above ~100 as an action threshold and anything above 200 as requiring immediate mitigation before production release.

What is the difference between severity, occurrence, and detection?

Severity rates how bad the failure's patient or device impact is, occurrence rates how often it happens, and detection rates how likely your incoming inspection catches it before assembly. Detection is scored inversely: a high number means poor detectability.

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

Yes. A skin-contact biocompatibility failure or a sensor that reads falsely normal can be severity 9-10 even when occurrence is rare. High-severity components warrant poka-yoke or 100% screening regardless of the multiplied RPN.

How is supplier RPN different from a standard process FMEA RPN?

The math is identical, but supplier RPN scopes the failure to purchased material and the detection factor reflects your receiving/incoming controls rather than in-line process checks.

How often should supplier risk scores be updated?

Recalculate at every supplier scorecard cycle (quarterly is common), after any field complaint or CAPA involving that part, and whenever a supplier changes process, sub-tier, or manufacturing site.

Wearable Medical Sensors calculator

Supplier Risk Calculator

Supplier Risk score is a Risk Priority Number (RPN) adapted for the incoming supply chain that feeds wearable medical sensor assembly — adhesive electrodes, flex PCBs, ASICs, and skin-contact polymers. Quality engineers and supplier quality (SQE) teams use it to rank vendors and part numbers so audit hours and dual-sourcing budgets land where a defect would most hurt patient safety or a 510(k) filing. Because a drifting electrode or a marginal LDO reaching a patient carries regulatory and clinical weight, ranking supplier risk numerically keeps a design FMEA honest instead of arguing by gut feel. The higher the product of the three scores, the more urgently that supplier or part needs mitigation before it ships into a Class II device.

What this calculator does

Estimate supplier risk for wearable medical sensors 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 wearable medical sensors needs a defensible ranking against other wearable medical sensors risks for the next review.
It multiplies a component's failure severity, occurrence likelihood, and inspection detectability into a single supplier Risk Priority Number for a given part or vendor.

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

Component failure severity rating (patient impact):
Failure occurrence likelihood rating:
Incoming inspection detection rating:

How to use the result

Use it during supplier onboarding, PPAP review, or design FMEA updates to prioritize which wearable-sensor components get audits, incoming AQL tightening, or a second source.
RPN treats the three factors as equal and multiplicative, so a catastrophic severity of 10 can be masked by a low occurrence — always review high-severity items regardless of total score.

Current U.S. benchmarks

The producer price index for copper and brass mill shapes stands at 559.593 (BLS, May 2026), up 76.8% from a year earlier. Quotes priced off last quarter's material cost miss this move. Global copper trades at $13,484 per tonne (IMF via FRED, May 2026).
U.S. manufacturing runs at 75.6% of capacity with new factory orders at $657B per month (Federal Reserve and Census, May 2026).
The U.S. has 11,261 computer and electronic products establishments employing about 815,443 workers (Census County Business Patterns, 2023).

Common questions

How do you calculate a supplier risk score? Multiply the three ratings: severity x occurrence x detection. With a severity of 6, occurrence of 4, and detection of 3, the supplier RPN is 72 on a standard 1-10 scale (the tool normalizes this against your chosen scale).
What is a good supplier risk score for medical sensor components? On a 1-10 scale the theoretical range is 1-1000. For Class II wearable components, treat anything above ~100 as an action threshold and anything above 200 as requiring immediate mitigation before production release.
What is the difference between severity, occurrence, and detection? Severity rates how bad the failure's patient or device impact is, occurrence rates how often it happens, and detection rates how likely your incoming inspection catches it before assembly. Detection is scored inversely: a high number means poor detectability.
Should I act on a high severity score even if the total is low? Yes. A skin-contact biocompatibility failure or a sensor that reads falsely normal can be severity 9-10 even when occurrence is rare. High-severity components warrant poka-yoke or 100% screening regardless of the multiplied RPN.
How is supplier RPN different from a standard process FMEA RPN? The math is identical, but supplier RPN scopes the failure to purchased material and the detection factor reflects your receiving/incoming controls rather than in-line process checks.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.