How to qualify a Portuguese supplier before the first order
A quotation tells you a price. Qualification tells you whether the company behind it can deliver, repeatedly, to your requirements. This guide lists what to ask for, what to check yourself and when to bring in specialists.
Company basics
- Legal name, registration number and VAT number (verifiable through the EU VIES service).
- Ownership, years in operation and main customer sectors.
- Site address and whether production happens there or is subcontracted.
- Insurance and any export references in the Nordics or Northern Europe.
Quality system and documentation
Ask which quality standard the company operates (for example ISO 9001, and ISO 13485 for medical devices) and request the certificate with its scope and expiry date. Ask what documentation accompanies deliveries — material certificates, inspection reports, certificates of conformity — and whether the company can meet your specific reporting needs. Certificates are evidence to verify, not a substitute for your own assessment.
Capacity and process
- Machines and processes relevant to your part, and whether they are in-house.
- Typical batch sizes and the share of capacity available for new work.
- How tooling is handled: ownership, storage, maintenance and what happens if you move production.
- Lead times for samples and series, with the assumptions behind them.
Samples and first article
Agree how samples are approved, what measurements or tests are reported and who pays. A first-article inspection report against your drawing is a reasonable expectation for machined and moulded parts. Treat sample approval as a gate before the series order, not a formality after it.
Visits and audits
A visit answers questions a questionnaire cannot: housekeeping, the state of equipment, how the team handles a drawing change. If your quality system requires a formal supplier audit, plan it with your own auditor or a specialist; a commercial intermediary can help organise the visit but does not replace the audit.
Red flags
- Quotations without stated assumptions, or that change materially after samples.
- Certificates that cannot be shown, are expired, or whose scope does not cover your process.
- No clear answer on where production actually takes place.
- Reluctance to put tooling ownership and data-sharing terms in writing.
None of these is necessarily disqualifying, but each should be resolved before the first order.
Discuss your sourcing project
Fractio helps Nordic buyers search for manufacturers in Portugal and coordinates quotations, samples and follow-up from Gothenburg. Scope, responsibilities and remuneration are agreed before work starts; an enquiry is not an order.
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