Automation of the ordering process in purchasing

Goal: Current commodity groups that could be assigned accordingly to a strategic buyer in order to work out and implement the strategy for them.

Project

Duration: 2 months
Role in the project: Project Manager

Operational area, geographical:

  • Austria

Company

Type: Mechanical / plant engineering
Turnover: 700 Mio. EUR
Number of employees: 4,200

Description

On average, each employee in purchasing processed about 32,000 order items/year. Many of these items were recurring, thus time-consuming and the manual intervention without added value.

Measures

  • Analysis of the purchasing behaviour of the previous 24 months
  • Cost analysis and price negotiation of the 20% of items that account for the largest volume.
  • Master data maintenance for material and vendors.
  • Conclusion of quantity contracts where necessary and possible.
  • Assignment of materials to standard suppliers in ERP system
  • Automation of the ordering process for assigned materials
  • Setting up of a reporting tool for the control and recognition of further potentials

Team

  • 5 Buyers from different teams

Reporting

  • Bi-weekly progress report to purchasing manager

Interfaces

  • Purchasing in 3 plants
  • IT
  • Suppliers

Success

After 2 months the operative workload in purchasing had decreased by about 20% and each individual was asked to use this time to find and work on further potentials.

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