I think that the criticality of the part being outsourced would have a great impact on the degree of background work that is done on a potential vendor. For example a low criticality part may not require as much research into the vendor company as a medium or high criticality product. For a high criticality part, a project manager likely needs to consider first the qualifications of that vendor for that particular part, any compliance or FDA related concerns that may come up, cost of doing business with them, past projects that vendor has worked on for medical devices, and anything else that may come up. For a lower criticality part a larger emphasis may be put on one of those factors such as the cost of working with that vendor; for a lower criticality part a project manager may not be as concerned with factors such as experience or history of the vendor.