3 Posts
My company deals in aerospace, defense, power generation, and oil & gas. We perform machining, and have many suppliers of goods and services. Our procurement group is small. I’ve recently been named Supplier Quality Engineer. I’m tasked with broad improvement over our supplier management process and am wondering about software and other tools. Specifically I’ve worked with customers who have a supplier-facing portal integrated with their ERP. I’d like to consider the feasibility of such an option for my company. Anyone ever built one from scratch or successfully implemented something off the shelf?
1 Replies
3 Posts
Whatever you chose make sure it isn't accountant driven. The operational side should see considerable improvement on the processes and policies.
Most software is accounting driven and that hampers new opportunities for improvement.
My point is as follows: Put Purchasing, Engineering and Sales departments together. The easiest place to save money is through the purchasing process not accounting nor Sales. Sales can improve by 1000's however which certainly add to the profits but not at the same rate as purchasing. If the company is working to the same specifications, purchasing can save additional $$ by issuing Long Term Purchase Agreements (LTPA) with suppliers and this affects the bottom line enormously. Accounting is pretty much after the fact with materials. Engineering needs to be involved in case there is changes pending on drawings.
All defective reports on materials is to be reviewed by Engineering. Perhaps the drawing can be changed to meet the suppliers process or
engineering can loosen the tolerances on the drawing. Purchasing needs to know about the potential change so the LTPA's are stating the correct issue of the drawing change so not to add additional expenses.
Sometimes companies go through many iterations of software before being satisfied. This can be very expensive.
Hope this info helps a bit.
Sandra
Most software is accounting driven and that hampers new opportunities for improvement.
My point is as follows: Put Purchasing, Engineering and Sales departments together. The easiest place to save money is through the purchasing process not accounting nor Sales. Sales can improve by 1000's however which certainly add to the profits but not at the same rate as purchasing. If the company is working to the same specifications, purchasing can save additional $$ by issuing Long Term Purchase Agreements (LTPA) with suppliers and this affects the bottom line enormously. Accounting is pretty much after the fact with materials. Engineering needs to be involved in case there is changes pending on drawings.
All defective reports on materials is to be reviewed by Engineering. Perhaps the drawing can be changed to meet the suppliers process or
engineering can loosen the tolerances on the drawing. Purchasing needs to know about the potential change so the LTPA's are stating the correct issue of the drawing change so not to add additional expenses.
Sometimes companies go through many iterations of software before being satisfied. This can be very expensive.
Hope this info helps a bit.
Sandra
