It looks like Major League Baseball is paying attention to supply management and supplier quality. Did you ever notice how frequently major league baseball players break their bats? And have you noticed how some bats shatter violently, with pieces flying dangerously all over the place? MLB has been trying to do something about this, especially since [...]
Supply management, procurement and quality professionals are increasingly aware that they should be measuring their suppliers’ performance and working with important suppliers on performance improvement. In their enthusiasm for going forward with these initiatives, some people make some errors that can impede or stall progress. Here are a few mistakes people making when trying to justify [...]
Supply managers and buyers have always had the challenge not just of finding suppliers but finding suppliers who are both high-performing and “best value”. Numerous supplier evaluation and supplier performance management software solutions are now available, where ten years ago very few options existed. Most options that I’m aware of are either SaaS (software as a [...]
Many firms are aware that they are dealing with too many suppliers. So they figure that the first thing they need to do is reduce the number of suppliers. The benefits of a smaller supply base lie in the area of reduced costs: lower prices by leveraging volume with fewer suppliers, fewer transactions to manage, and [...]
In an April post on Spend Matters, Spend Visibility — Use RFPs with Home Maintenance Contractors, Jason Busch advocated using an RFP to make sure that contractors are bidding the same job and to help make it easier to compare bids. I wish it were that easy. We’re grappling with a trade that seems to think [...]
In a survey of 223 procurement, supply chain and supplier relationship management by the consultancy, State of Flux, almost two-thirds said that they did not have a definition of Supplier Relatinonship Management (SRM) in their companies. The conclusion of Alan Day, Managing Director of State of Flux, a supply chain consultancy in the UK, was that [...]
In a recent poll conducted by Supply Management, more than half of buyers (55%) have experienced problems introducing suppliers to e-procurement systems. But the other 45% did not. What was the difference? How the new technology was communicated to suppliers. While some buyers used carrots and others used sticks, which typically worked if nothing else did, [...]
Companies have typically viewed suppliers as a source of cost that needs to be reduced, as supplier costs directly impact the bottom line. And it’s a given that procurement is always under pressure to fulfill the cost reduction mission. But in the process of viewing suppliers as big dollar signs that need to be squeezed, firms [...]
Some people are heaving sighs of relief that Chrysler is emerging from bankruptcy in the arms of Fiat and that GM is officially in bankruptcy soon to emerge as leaner and meaner entities. However, many are left holding the proverbial bag. Who are they? The unsecured creditors who are lining up to salvage whatever they can [...]
Recently I wrote about suppliers who charge their customers to conduct an on-site audit. The desire to charge stems from the fact that site visits are time-consuming and resource-intense for suppliers. Many suppliers have to host multiple site visits and particularly the smaller suppliers, find them disruptive to their business. A [...]
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