New indexes use AI-powered data insights, exposing spikes in supplier performance and market patterns up to two quarters before they happen
Austin, TX – April 15, 2025 – SourceDay, a leading supply chain collaboration platform that connects manufacturers, distributors, and their suppliers, today announces the launch of its Supplier Reliability and Supply Volatility Indexes, two leading quarterly benchmarking tools designed to help manufacturers and distributors better evaluate and even predict supplier performance and future risk across industries with greater accuracy.
“As the manufacturing industry continues to address the major effects of tariffs, the Supplier Reliability and Supply Volatility Indexes help to identify upstream warning signs 1-2 quarters before they happen, enabling manufacturers and distributors to proactively deploy mitigation tactics, improve supplier engagement, and improve outcomes for their customers,” said Michael Miller, CEO of SourceDay. “The indexes have predictive power and enable both manufacturers and distributors to see what’s around corners, which is invaluable given that volatility levels are increasing dramatically by the day due to demand uncertainty and price risk.”
The Supplier Reliability Index and Supply Volatility Index use SourceDay’s AI-powered proprietary database across the purchase order (PO) lifecycle. The Supplier Reliability Index measures the health of supplier relationships across dimensions that matter most to performance and resiliency: responsiveness, on-time delivery (OTD), price and lead time stability, and level of accommodation to buyer requests. Supply chains around the world have refocused on resiliency post-pandemic, and the Supplier Reliability Index measures how successful those efforts have been.
“Suppliers play an integral role in helping manufacturers and distributors maintain operational efficiency, product quality, and profitability,” Miller said. “In fact, there is no factor that improves on-time delivery more than timely engagement from suppliers. We’ve seen that when suppliers engage on POs in SourceDay, late orders are reduced by 48%.”
On the other hand, the Supply Volatility Index assesses operational threats and signs of strain in the national supply chain, such as increased uncertainty in demand, price volatility, shortages, and late orders. These signs of strain are measured by frequency and degree of PO changes, price increases, variance for a given part, manufacturer move ins and move outs, on-time and in-full deliveries, all of which contribute to supply chain volatility.
In Q1 of FY25, the Supplier Reliability and Supply Volatility Indexes found:
- Supplier reliability has broadly increased (61.9% to 62.7%) over the last two years as investments in supply chain resiliency post-pandemic take hold. This steady increase is driven by increases in supplier responsiveness (+2%) and willingness to accommodate buyer requests (+7%), along with steady improvements in OTD (+2%).
- At risk of toppling this hard-won reliability, supply volatility reached the highest level since Q2 2022 at 67.0%, a period marked by material shortages, labor shortages, and unstable demand signals. This level of volatility is a 22% year-over-year increase.
- Volatility is driven by sharp increases in demand uncertainty (+6%) and price volatility (+36%) in Q1 as manufacturers prepare for and respond to the threat of tariffs. Many manufacturers moved orders in to build inventory stockpiles at predictable prices, while supplier price changes spiked for the first time since 2022.
- Demand uncertainty, as measured by manufacturers changing order due dates, was a leading indicator of poor supply chain performance in 2021, as buyers are often the first to react to changing environments with date “move outs”.
“Tariffs are back in a big way for 2025—and they’re hitting supply chains hard,” said Robert Kramer, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “80% of U.S. businesses anticipate major sourcing disruptions. This isn’t just a policy change—it’s a wake-up call.”
Outputs from the indexes give manufacturers and distributors the information they need to enhance collaboration with their vendor network, make more informed decisions that can mitigate ongoing risk within their own supply chains, and educate consumers about variables that contribute to supply chain unsteadiness.
Download the Supplier Reliability and Supply Volatility Indexes to learn more. For more information about SourceDay, visit https://sourceday.com/.
About SourceDay Dataset
The dataset used for the Supplier Reliability and Supply Volatility Indexes is built from aggregated, anonymized data from SourceDay’s network of more than 1.6 million suppliers, tracking 100 million annual PO updates, 5 million mastered items, 75 million supplier messages, and $70 billion in direct materials spending. The Supplier Reliability Index covers periods between Q1 2023 – Q1 2025. The Supply Volatility Index covers periods between Q1 2021 – Q1 2025.
About SourceDay
SourceDay is a cloud-based, best-in-class supplier portal powered by patent-pending AI to streamline buyer-supplier engagement and collaboration. By automating purchase order workflows and syncing with manufacturers’ ERPs, SourceDay helps eliminate on-time delivery risk, increase supplier reliability, reduce labor and inventory costs, and operate with 100% accurate PO data.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Nicole Kern
SourceDay
[email protected]
