Cost of Vendor Quality Calculator
Estimate the annual direct cost of vendor-related quality issues — investigations, CAPAs and remediation — across your clinical trial portfolio.
Input Parameters
Adjust the variables below to estimate your annual cost. Results update as you type.
Cost Assumptions
Cost of addressing a vendor-related quality issue — investigation, remediation, and CAPA activities. Benchmark £29,060 is a weighted average of minor, major, and critical findings.
Trial Portfolio
Describe your typical vendor portfolio and trial activity.
How often quality issues occur per vendor annually.
Labs, CROs, logistics providers, etc.
Active trials running at the same time.
Potential annual savings
by cutting vendor quality issues in half.
Annual Impact
11.3 vendor-related investigations per year
Per Trial
Expected cost of quality issues per trial (C × r × V).
Formula
Total Annual Cost =
£29,000 × 0.75 × 5 × 3
= £326,250
Methodology
This calculator estimates the expected annual direct cost of vendor-related quality issues based on your vendor portfolio and trial activity. It models the investigations, remediation work and CAPAs that typically follow when vendor quality falls short — and surfaces the savings available through structured vendor oversight.
Formula: Total Annual Cost = C × r × V × T
Variables
- • C — Average cost per investigation / CAPA. The cost of addressing a vendor-related quality issue, including investigation, remediation and CAPA activities. The default benchmark of £29,060 is a weighted average of minor, major and critical findings.
- • r — Rate of quality issues per vendor per year. How often quality issues occur per vendor annually. A default of 0.75 issues per vendor per year reflects a typical mid-maturity oversight programme.
- • V — Vendors per clinical trial. The distinct vendors involved in a single trial — labs, CROs, logistics providers, IRT, eCOA, central imaging and similar.
- • T — Concurrent clinical trials. The number of active trials running in parallel across the organisation.
How to reduce the cost of vendor quality
- •Qualify vendors against risk-proportionate criteria before contract award
- •Run structured oversight with defined KPIs, quality metrics and review cadences
- •Catch signals early with ongoing quality monitoring rather than end-of-study audits
- •Standardise CAPA workflows so investigation cost per finding trends down over time
- •Share oversight learnings across trials so one vendor issue does not repeat in three studies
Based on methodology from Cost of Vendor Quality (Mayet Vendor Management Software).
Start With a Conversation
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