# Self-Supply Decision Sheet **Version:** 1.0 **Date:** 2026-08-22 **Type:** Instrument — one page per proposal, filled before any quote is sought --- ## 1. What this is Every operator eventually asks whether to make something rather than buy it. Soap, linen, uniforms, food, laundry, maintenance, a piece of software. The instinct is usually sound — it is about control and about not paying somebody else's margin. This sheet is the gate that instinct has to pass. **Six tests, in order. Fail one and stop.** The order matters: the early tests are free to answer and the late ones cost money, so a proposal that dies at test two never incurs the cost of testing five. Fill it in before pricing anything. A quote in hand makes the argument about the number, and the number is rarely the reason. **Proposal:** _______________________________________________ **Proposed by:** ______________ **Date:** __________ --- ## 2. Test 1 — Are we permitted to? Branded and franchised properties often specify guest-facing items, approved suppliers, or both. A specification does not care how good your version is. | | | |---|---| | Is this item specified or supplier-controlled? | yes / no / **don't know** | | Where did that answer come from? | | ⚠ **"Don't know" is a stop, not a maybe.** And the answer must come from the standard itself, not from a supplier who benefits from the answer being yes. That is the most commonly mis-sourced fact on this page. **STOP IF:** specified, supplier-controlled, or unconfirmed. --- ## 3. Test 2 — Does making it put us under a regime we are not in today? Producing a thing is often regulated where buying it is not. Licensing, registration, record-keeping, labelling, product liability, food handling, waste handling. | | | |---|---| | What regime, if any, does producing this fall under? | | | Which duties would attach to us specifically? | | | Who by name would hold them? | | | Is there a reporting clock, and how long is it? | | ⚠ **Two different questions hide here and the second is usually skipped.** Whether an exemption removes *registration* is not the same as whether it removes *responsibility*. An exemption from one is routinely read as an exemption from both. ⚠ **A duty with a clock attached needs a named person, not a team.** A clock does not pause for a vacancy, a season, or a holiday. **STOP IF:** a regime attaches and nobody is named to hold it. --- ## 4. Test 3 — Who performs the work, and what does it retire? | | | |---|---| | Who physically does this, by role? | | | Is it NEW work, work that REPLACES something, or work ABSORBED centrally? | | | If NEW — what specifically comes off that person's list? | | | Hours per week, honestly estimated | | ⚠ **A new ask ships only against a retirement.** "They can fit it in" is not a retirement. At a property where one person covers several jobs, an hour added is an hour taken from something, and it will be taken from whatever has no deadline attached. ⚠ Watch for work described as one-time that is recurring. An installation is one-time; refilling, cleaning, checking and maintaining what was installed is not. **STOP IF:** it is NEW and nothing is named that it retires. --- ## 5. Test 4 — Does it scale to our actual volume? | | | |---|---| | Units needed per year | | | How that was calculated (show the arithmetic) | | | Units per hour of labour, realistically | | | Hours per year that implies | | ⚠ **The volume calculation must show its denominator.** Per-room and per-night quantities multiply by a count, and a count taken from the wrong document misstates every figure downstream in the same direction at once. **STOP IF:** the implied hours do not exist in anyone's week. --- ## 6. Test 5 — Would anyone notice? | | | |---|---| | Would a guest notice this being ours rather than bought? | yes / no | | Would they notice if it were worse? | yes / no | ⚠ **These two answers are usually different, and the second one is the risk.** Items nobody notices when they are good are still noticed when they fail. A category where the upside is invisible and the downside is not is a poor place to spend effort. **STOP IF:** invisible when right, visible when wrong. --- ## 7. Test 6 — What happens when it goes wrong, and who carries it? | | | |---|---| | What is the realistic failure? | | | Who is harmed — guest, staff, or only us? | | | Does our existing insurance cover a thing we made? | yes / no / **don't know** | | What is the recall or withdrawal path? | | ⚠ **"Only us" is the only comfortable answer here.** Anything that can reach a guest changes the question from operations to liability, and an insurance answer of "don't know" is a stop. **STOP IF:** a guest can be harmed and the cover is unconfirmed. --- ## 8. The verdict | test | pass / stop | |---|---| | 1 Permitted | | | 2 Regime | | | 3 Load | | | 4 Volume | | | 5 Notice | | | 6 Failure | | **Verdict:** make / buy / buy-and-brand / **not decided — which test is open?** **If stopped, at which test, and what would have to change:** _______________________________________________________________ --- ## 9. What makes an unfinished sheet visible **A stop is recorded, not erased.** A proposal that fails at test two is written down as failing at test two. Otherwise the same idea returns in six months and is argued from the beginning, because nobody can say what killed it last time. **Every "don't know" is a stop and stays on the page.** The sheet does not distinguish between an answer of no and an absence of an answer, because most bad self-supply decisions are made in that gap — not by deciding wrongly, but by never noticing a question was unanswered. **Tests are answered in order and the order is printed.** A sheet with test five filled in and test one blank shows that somebody priced it before checking whether it was allowed, which is the usual sequence and the expensive one. --- ## 10. Before first use 1. **Who is permitted to say stop?** If only the proposer can, the gate is decorative. 2. **Where do specification answers come from?** Name the document, not a person's recollection and not a vendor. 3. **What is the review period for a stopped proposal?** Conditions change; "never" and "not yet" are different verdicts and should be recorded as such. --- ## What this instrument does not do It does not price anything. Cost enters only after all six tests pass, because a good price for something you are not permitted to make, cannot staff, or cannot insure is not a good price. It does not tell you what any regime requires. It tells you to find out, from the source, and to write down where the answer came from. The sheet publishes blank. Every property's filled sheets are its own.