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Archive for the ‘Supply Chain Procurement’ Category

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Buyers; Do you need a great place to research product quality and recall issues?

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC’s work to ensure the safety of consumer products – such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals – contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

 Recalls and Product Safety News can be found at the CPSC’s website and can be searched using a number of categories, dates and other criteria such as those below.

1. Recall Number
2. Company
3. Product Type
4. Product Description
5. Hazard
6. Country/Administrative Area of Manufacture
7. Recall Date
8. UPC

You don’t always have to buy something in order to get your job done. Sometimes just knowing where to find the information can be the hardest part of your job. Now you have one fewer places to look.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Supply Chain Procurement

Rain, Wheat and Pasta!

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

For weeks, North Dakota and Montana, the nation’s two largest producers of durum wheat have been pounded with heavy rain that will likely mean a drop of up to 47% of durum wheat production. 

Durum wheat, or “macaroni wheat”, is the hardest of all wheat types and that together with its high protein and gluten content make it the perfect wheat to be used in the manufacturing of pasta.

Due to the heavy rains farmers have been unable to get crops planted and even now they are out of time to plant crops in time to avoid the pre-winter frosts and will likely have a little more than half of the durum wheat production as normal, affecting prices of related products all over the world.
Durum wheat was up over 52% in May and the May U.S. pasta prices were the most expensive on record while other durum wheat producers like Canada saw prices jump 47% in May.  With fewer acres of wheat being produced the pasta prices will be affected accordingly.

Companies producing pasta products like Kraft with their Macaroni and Cheese and Campbells with products ranging from noodle-based soups to Spaghettios, have already announced increases in many of their products due to the lack of durum wheat production and subsequent higher durum wheat prices.

In product categories such as this one it is more important than ever to make sure that you are doing everything you can to keep the cost of goods controlled with tighter contracts containing index terminology and keeping the pricing you receive as competitive as possible. 

When the supply of product takes a huge decrease in relation to its demand, the opportunity for competitive pricing events becomes a little more difficult, as vendors will have plenty of places to sell their product. 

This may be a time to get more creative in other ways as far as length of contracts, other services or products you may agree to take on, or other considerations that will allow you to get competitive pricing on a high demand product category.  It is hard to predict what climatic conditions such as all of the spring rain will do  to agricultural products, but smart procurement professionals can learn to leverage other techniques in order to keep their costs for products affected by these conditions under control.

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can assist your company with sourcing these goods and services, please contact a Customer Service Representative for more information.

We hope you have enjoyed last week’s  Five Part Series and look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-procurement, E-supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

What is the Certified Professional in Supply Management® (CPSM®)?

Friday, June 10th, 2011

The Certified Professional in Supply Management® is the qualification that supply management professionals strive to earn. The CPSM® will be relevant internationally and reflect the expanded knowledge, skills and abilities needed to be a successful supply management professional.
 
Certification for the CPSM is offered by The Institute for Supply Management or (ISM) which was founded in 1915 and is the largest supply management association in the world as well as one of the most respected. ISM’s mission is to lead the supply management profession through its standards of excellence, research, promotional activities, and education. ISM’s membership base includes more than 40,000 supply management professionals with a network of domestic and international affiliated associations. ISM is a not-for-profit association that provides opportunities for the promotion of the profession and the expansion of professional skills and knowledge.

Supply chain workers should be proud of their profession and earning your CPSM is one way to brag about it.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in Supply Chain Procurement

If you treat suppliers fairly and openly they will continue to participate in your strategic sourcing events.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

We regularly conduct surveys as part of our SOP when we have completed an online e-RFX. These surveys are pivotal to ensuring that participants in our customer’s events were treated fairly. What our suppliers have told us makes events successful for them and would encourage them to participate again even if they did not happen to be the low bidder in a particular event is that this is an educational process for their company and ultimately becomes a way to do old things in a new way. To a company our suppliers encourage the following. Openly communicate with all suppliers and make sure they understand everything and are completely comfortable with specifications, terms and conditions, quoting instructions etc. Take the time to be complete even if they have participated in the past. Make sure they have no questions.
 
Here is a sample list of questions that should be considered when inviting or encouraging suppliers as  participants.

1. Does the supplier understand that there is no cost to them to participate?
2. Do they understand they will be trained at know charge?
3. Do they understand event timing and requirements?
4. Does the supplier understand the terms being used and how they apply to a strategic sourcing event such as?
a. Current Price
b. Reserve Price
c. Index Price
d. Mixed price evaluation
e. Low Quote
f. Low quote indicator
g. Last entry indicator
h. Funds
i. Terms
j. Notes
k. Extensions
l. Matching quotes
m. Event  rules
n. Product specifications
o. Samples
p. Award of business

At the heart of it, this is common sense. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Unfortunately many companies don’t always follow this practice and as such, it negatively impacts the sustainability of their strategic sourcing program.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, Business Sourcing, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement

Knowing Who Your Suppliers Are – Onsite Visits – Part II of II

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Last week I posted a blog about the importance of onsite visits with your suppliers, how to prepare, what to look for, and the value of performing these visits.  This week we will be taking a look at some of the additional things that you need to think about when visiting a supplier in another country.

Visits to international sites will need to encompass the same types of information gathering as a domestic one such as reviewing the cleanliness of the facilities, observing production, logistic and storage processes, but there 3 important areas that must be considered in addition to these that may determine the success or failure of the visit.

Language – Assuming you are visiting a supplier that is not located in a predominantly English-speaking country, the capability to communicate onsite is an important one that should be addressed well in advance of the visit.  Many times the supplier will have staff that is fluent in more than language and can act as an interpreter, however procuring your own interpreter is also a suggestion and possibility. Also, some basic considerations of your own communication style would be to speak more slowly than usual and pause in between sentences to be understood more easily.

Culture – This is an important area to prepare for because in some countries seemingly minor things can create a tense atmosphere.  Determining whether to bow and the details surrounding when and how, if the country shakes hands when they greet and which hand they shake with are all important items in some countries and should be learned prior to your visit.  On the other hand, it is equally important to note the things that are normally unaccepted behaviors in the U.S. which many times are not viewed the same way in other countries.  Americans would generally never answer a phone call in a meeting or show up to an appointment late, but in other countries these behaviors are far less important and frequently occur during the course of doing business.

Capturing the details – Visits to international suppliers generally come with a price tag that is not insignificant to your company, so capturing as much data as possible is important on these visits.  Wherever you go during your visit take a notepad and camera with you to record what you see and hear while on the visit.  Many manufacturers will allow you to take occasional pictures as long as you ask in advance and have it cleared.  Some may not allow it and others may allow it as long as no employees are included in the pictures.  Capturing these details will be very useful to you and your team in the future and can potentially save trips for other employees in the future.

Onsite visits to your suppliers are incredibly valuable and important to your organization and are a terrific tool for knowing who your suppliers are and how they do business.  They are also important forums to gather details necessary for later contract negotiations.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement

Lean business practices create a weighty issue.

Monday, May 16th, 2011

These author tires of the desire of businesses that are trying to reinvent themselves and in so doing constantly coming up with new buzz words, industry terms and business jargon in order to try and prove that they are thinking differently and as such should be trusted to be on the right path. Maybe their original business plan was just flawed and they are not deserving of our trust.

Lean in any functional area of a business simply means producing more or getting more done with fewer resources. I’m not sure this is a great message for companies that are just launching, trying to grow or improve. If you’ve been around for while, and your customer reads between the lines properly, this may just mean that you did not plan your launch properly or react properly to market indicators in the past.

We all know that lean practices were originally a move to reduce costs in the manufacturing process and since it worked for manufacturing where we are typically talking about thousands if not millions of pieces and parts, other companies began to think why not for our business. As such let’s apply the term lean to the supply chain or the procurement space. Any one that knows the procurement space already understands the lack of resources.

The goal of every business should be to provide the end user or customer with what they want or what you have promised them at a fare price. If you do so, that customer and others that hear about that customers experience should buy more. When this happens, if the business plans appropriately they should grow and grow profitably. And this should create new and sustainable jobs. So, how is this any different than the way businesses were run 50 years go or 100 years ago? The truth is that it’s not.

The decision to not hire, to try and do more with less and to reposition resources rather than firing someone is a better way to run a business. Unfortunately they do not teach this in business school. This author has been through many mergers, acquisitions, downsizings and the like over a lengthy career. One thing you can always count on in these scenarios is let’s cut expenses. You can call it lean, but it’s not.

So, let’s not hide behind the term lean or other business jargon or buzz words.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-supply Chain, Procurement Solutions, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement

It’s 2011; do you know where your supplier data comes from?

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Data models incorporated into effective e-procurement supplier data management programs should be extremely complex. This is why they are much more than a simple online directory. In fact, properly designed high quality supplier databases should be able to provide much of the data you might find in the opening pages of a detailed Request for Information or RFI.

A simple query of this data such as, “show me all companies within a 500 mile radius of the home office zip code that provide this defined set of products and that meet the following safety certifications”, should produce an accurate, verified list of supplier options that benefit the buyer and streamline the procurement process. Additional queries are typically used to summarize additional information related to defining the potential suppliers identified. Providing a list of attributes such as business description, sales volume, years in business, corporate officers, product performance ranges, etc. is the logical next step. The drill down through available information continues from here as the results provided become more refined with each query. As you can recognize, effective supplier data management involves the retrieval of valuable information from a data source that includes a substantial number of records and classifies the results according to the parameters defined.

Where does your data come from and how often do you choose a new source of supply provided by this data.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

Effective Supplier Data Management Improves Procurement Process

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

The following excerpt is from the above titled article.

There is more to an effective e-procurement program than cost reduction.

While buyers frequently record cost reductions in the range of 30% to 40% when utilizing an e-procurement or reverse auction process, the issues of quality and performance cannot be overlooked.

The foundation for successful e-procurement is the supplier database
that has been developed and is maintained by the e-procurement service provider. Significant time and capital investment goes into the development of an effective supplier database. It provides the buyer with a recognizable advantage in terms of classification of supplier capabilities, historical performance and the quality of the products provided.

The scope, accuracy and functionality of the supplier database are critical components for buyers when using e-procurement. These elements allow buyers to identify the best sources of supply quickly and cost-effectively, oftentimes uncovering alternative sources that were previously not even considered. This is one of the major advantages of including the services of an online reverse auction service provider like SafeSourcing in the procurement process.

Supplier data management is an excellent example of pairing technology advancements with intellectual property to produce an effective, economical support tool that benefits both suppliers and buyers – better pricing,better quality and better sources of supply.

Click here in order to view the entire article.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

Knowing Who Your Suppliers Are – Onsite Visits – Part I of II

Monday, May 9th, 2011

One of the important practices recognized by many successful procurement professionals is that of performing onsite visits to both their new and incumbent suppliers.  So much can be learned about how your suppliers do business that may affect your future decisions and contracts.

Today’s blog will be focusing on visits to domestic suppliers and Part II will have more details on visiting your international suppliers.

If you are dealing with a new supplier and scheduling an onsite visit, this is the opportunity for you to validate all of the details they have presented in their RFP/RFI response or presentation; validating that they have the staff, resources and facilities to handle the demand you are requiring of them.

This will be an opportunity to meet the sales and support team that will be assisting you and your company when the inevitable problem does occur, so take advantage of this time to get acquainted with the supplier’s staff.
If you are dealing with an incumbent supplier, make sure you have thoroughly reviewed your existing contract so that details about the level of service and quality promised can be focused on as part of the visit.  Make sure that you request, in advance, any additional reporting from your IT department or from the supplier on the history of the relationship so far.  This would include quality issues, shipping issues, product delays, inventory availability or any other special circumstance that may have occurred.  This visit will be the right time for you discuss these with the supplier face-to-face.

A final very important area to spend time in your visit, whether new or existing supplier, is the shipping area.  Here you will have a very clear idea of how the supplier is organized and you may even get a glimpse at the companies they get their raw materials from as well as other customers they are shipping too for future reference and follow-up.  Information found in this area will also go a long way when having contract negotiations with your incumbent suppliers for concessions on how your products and deliveries are handled.

Onsite visits are critical to understanding who you suppliers are and can be extremely valuable negotiation checkpoints.  My next blog will focus on the differences and things to consider when visiting international suppliers.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, Contract Management, E-supply Chain, Retail Supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

Knowing the Organizations Helping to Protect Us – Part 2 of 4

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

In Monday’s blog we talked about how many organizations are out there working very hard to make sure that the world and its inhabitants are safer.
In the rest of this week’s posts we would like to take some time and highlight a few of the groups that work so hard to protect us, groups you may or may not been familiar with but that deserve the attention and praise of the business world.

The Gluten Free Certification Organization (GFCO) “provides an independent service to supervise gluten-free food production according to a consistent, defined, science-based standard that is confirmed by field inspections, in order to achieve heightened consumer confidence and safety. “ (www.gfco.org)

Gluten-free diets are very common for treating diseases of the intestine, connective tissues, and other sensitivities and allergies of the protein, gluten.  The GFCO works with auditors to certify that are manufactured to the guidelines to ensure a product is gluten-free and safe for those with the ailments above.  Working with manufactures such as Snyder’s and retailers such as Trader Joes, the GFCO works hard to improve the products consumed by those on gluten-free diets.

For more information on the certified Gluten-Free go to our website or for a list of Certified Gluten-Free products go to the GFCO’s site at http://www.gfco.org/products.php

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Supply Chain Procurement

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