Supplier Types

Quick Answer: When you add a supplier, answer a few guided questions — whether they manufacture your product, who sources the components, and whether you track stock at their facility — to land on Finished goods supplier, Turnkey manufacturer, or Consignment manufacturer. Manufacturers can also hold your stock: track inventory and either create a new warehouse named after them or link one you already have, so stock at their facility is visible in planning. Takes about 2 minutes.

What Are Supplier Types?

A supplier type is the answer to "what does this vendor actually do for us" — do they sell you finished product, or do they make it? Moselle works this out through a short set of guided questions when you add or edit a supplier, and uses the answer to decide how that supplier's lead times work and whether they can hold your stock.

Type	Use it when	What it changes
Finished goods supplier	A straight purchase — they sell you ready-made product	The connection carries one lead time (transfer). Drawn on the Supply Chain canvas as a Purchase line
Turnkey manufacturer	They make your product and handle all the inputs themselves — you just place the PO	The connection carries a production lead time and a transfer lead time, added together into the total lead time used in planning. Drawn as a Production line. Inventory tracking at their facility is optional
Consignment manufacturer	They make your product from components you supply — your inputs have to be at their facility before production starts	Same production + transfer lead times as turnkey. Inventory tracking at their facility is required, so Moselle knows what's already sitting there

"Consignment manufacturer" is not the same as consignment inventory. Consignment inventory means your stock sits with a customer or retailer. A consignment manufacturer is the reverse: your components sit at their factory, waiting to be built.

Suppliers you created before this question existed read as Finished goods supplier until you change them, so nothing you already set up moves on its own.

Set the Type When You Add a Supplier

Time Required: 2 minutes Difficulty: Beginner

1

Open the Add supplier dialog

Click Suppliers in the left sidebar, then Add Supplier in the top right.

You can also do this from the Supply Chain canvas (Operations > Inventory > Supply Chain): click the + on the Suppliers heading in the left-hand tray. It's the same dialog, and the new supplier appears in the tray ready to drag onto the canvas.

2

Enter the supplier's details

Fill in Name, Country, and Currency.

3

Answer the guided questions

Start with Do they manufacture your products? Answer No, we buy finished goods and you're done — this resolves to Finished goods supplier. Answer Yes, they make product for us and you're asked Who supplies the components they build with? — pick We do, our components go to their facility to resolve straight to Consignment manufacturer, or The supplier, they source their own components to continue toward Turnkey manufacturer.

Expected Result: The dialog shows your resolved supplier type as soon as your answers determine it, and continuing toward a manufacturing type leads to a follow-up question about inventory at their facility.

4

Answer the inventory question

• Turnkey manufacturer — choose Yes — track stock sitting at this supplier or No — their stock is a black box.

• Consignment manufacturer — tracking is mandatory and set up for you; there's nothing to choose.

Choosing Yes (or landing on a consignment pick) asks one more question: How do you want to track their inventory? Choose Create a new warehouse to have Moselle create one named after the supplier, or Link to an existing warehouse to pair the supplier with a warehouse you already have — its stock and history become this supplier's facility.

5

Save

Click Save changes. You land on the Supplier Details page, where you can add contact details, preference ranking, and notes.

Track Inventory at a Supplier's Facility

Some facilities are both a supplier and a place your stock physically sits — a co-packer that assembles your product and holds finished goods for a few weeks before they ship on. Turning on inventory tracking lets Moselle record both facts about the same facility, so you can raise purchase orders against it and see the stock standing in it.

Once tracking is on:

• Depending on which option you chose, either a new warehouse named after the supplier appears in your warehouse list, or the existing warehouse you picked becomes linked to the supplier — either way, its stock shows up in inventory like any other location.

• The supplier's card on the Supply Chain canvas shows Inventory tracked at [warehouse].

• Component vendors can be connected into that manufacturer on the canvas (see below).

Keeping those levels current: the supplier warehouse isn't fed by an integration, so you update it the way you'd update any Moselle-managed warehouse — upload a snapshot from the warehouse's Stock Levels tab, or ask Mo to do it for you.

Update Inventory with Mo

A supplier and a warehouse pair up exclusively. One warehouse per supplier, one supplier per warehouse. A region's backing location can't be used either — a forecasting group isn't a facility.

Change a Supplier's Type Later

The same question is editable after creation, from the Supply Chain canvas:

1

Open the supplier's card

Go to Operations > Inventory > Supply Chain and click the supplier's node on the canvas.

2

Change the answers

Walk back through the same guided questions — switching between the two manufacturing types, or switching a finished goods supplier into a manufacturer, applies immediately.

3

Confirm if you're switching back to finished goods

Moselle asks "Switch to finished goods?" and tells you how many connections carry production lead times. Switching erases those production lead times — transfer lead times and order terms (minimums, multiples, maximums) are kept. Click Switch & erase to go ahead, or Cancel.

Turning inventory tracking off is not the reverse of turning it on. The linked warehouse stays, because it may already hold stock and carry connections. If you genuinely don't want it, archive the warehouse.

Connect Component Vendors to a Manufacturer

When you supply the inputs, the vendors who make those inputs deliver straight to the factory rather than to you. On the Supply Chain canvas you can draw that: drag a connection from the component vendor to the manufacturer.

This is only allowed when the receiving supplier is a manufacturer that tracks inventory at its facility — otherwise Moselle has no way to know what components are already sitting there. If the receiver doesn't qualify, the drop is refused with a message telling you what to change:

[Supplier] can't receive components yet — mark it as a manufacturer and track inventory at its facility first (select the card to set both).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which type should I choose for a co-packer?

Answer: If they buy their own raw materials and hand you finished product, choose Turnkey manufacturer. If you send them components to assemble, choose Consignment manufacturer.

Does the supplier type change my lead times?

Answer: It changes how they're entered. A finished goods supplier has a single transfer lead time. A manufacturer has a production lead time plus a transfer lead time, and planning uses the two added together as the total time from ordering to available.

Can two suppliers share the same warehouse?

Answer: No. The pairing is exclusive in both directions — one warehouse per supplier, and one supplier per warehouse.

Do I have to answer this for suppliers I already created?

Answer: No. Existing suppliers read as Finished goods supplier, which is right for most vendors. Change only the ones that manufacture for you.

Where does the supplier's warehouse get its name?

Answer: It depends on how you set up tracking. Choose Create a new warehouse and it's created with the supplier's own name, because that's what the facility is called in practice. Choose Link to an existing warehouse and it keeps the name it already had.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Problem	Solution	Time to Fix
A component vendor won't connect to a manufacturer	Select the manufacturer's card, set it to a manufacturing type, and turn on inventory tracking at its facility	1 minute
Stock at the supplier's facility reads zero	Its warehouse has no snapshot yet — open the warehouse's Stock Levels tab and upload one, or ask Mo	5 minutes
The warehouse I want to link isn't accepted	It's already paired with another supplier, or it's a region's backing location. Pick a different warehouse	2 minutes
Production lead times disappeared from a supplier's connections	The supplier was switched back to Finished goods supplier, which erases them. Switch it back to a manufacturing type and re-enter them	5 minutes

Related Guides

Add a SupplierSupply Chain Network