A company purchases electronic components and then assembles them to produce customer-specified code readers.

A company purchases electronic components and then assembles them to produce customer-specified code readers. Recently, the company has been tracking complaints about the product and found that the majority of complaints are in three key areas: faulty interface connectors, incomplete or failed code recognition from scans, and insufficient power in battery-operated mode. Since the components that contribute to these problems all come from different suppliers, the quality manager has proposed developing a supplier certification program to replace the current low-bid purchase contract system now being used. As part of supplier certification, the company should perform which of the following actions?