Patent ID: 8321263

Claim:
An apparatus for determining a vendor quality index (VQI) of a service provider, the apparatus comprising: a memory device, configured to receive service provider performance data related to services performed by the service provider, the service provider performance data including subjective performance data; and a processor, configured to: select a plurality of performance criteria; determine, for each of the plurality of performance criteria, a quantified performance criterion value based on the service provider performance data, wherein, for at least one performance criterion of the plurality of performance of performance criteria, the processor is configured to: for each record from a plurality of records in the service provider data that include subjective performance data, assign the record to a category from a plurality of categories based a performance data value in the record, wherein each category from the categories corresponds to a respective range of performance data values, wherein the record is assigned to the category based on whether the performance data value in the record is within the range of performance data values to which the category corresponds, and wherein each category of the categories corresponds to a respective quantitative category value; determine, for each record of the assigned records, the quantitative category value that corresponds to the category to which the record is assigned; and determine the quantified performance criterion value as an average of the determined quantitative category values; and determine the VQI as a weighted sum based on the performance criterion values and a plurality of weighting factors; wherein, for the at least one performance criterion: the plurality of categories includes an “unsatisfactory” category and a “satisfactory” category; the “unsatisfactory” category corresponds to a range of performance data values from zero to four and corresponds to a quantitative category value of zero; and the “satisfactory” category corresponds to a range of performance data values from five to ten and corresponds to a quantitative category value of one.