Sourcing · The concentration position · Element

The switching cost

What it would take to move to another source.

The part

What it is

Qualification, tooling, specification change, requalification and the period of dual running. All of these grow over time.

Where switching cost has grown to the point that the relationship is no longer negotiable, that should be a recorded fact rather than a discovery during a price negotiation.

The smallest level

The attributes it carries

Each attribute is one of the framework’s shared types. What a date is, and how it is written, is defined once for the whole model — the note here says what it means in this particular place.