Category Archives: General

How to report the cost status of a R&D Project

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The R&D Project cost and schedule status are the most important KPI’s for a procurement organization. Therefore, it is not surprising that the head of procurement or CPO focus his interest of these two areas. If you are the procurement representative in an R&D project, you should consider this. Many of you have faced already the balancing act to deliver the key message and not getting lost in all the details. I developed a PowerPoint template which addresses the expectations from senior management. This template was already used in many different reviews and is proven best practice.

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Why Product disassembly is an important lever in the Design to Value process

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First of all I have to excuse that there was no new articles posted for the last view months. Corona did also impact us and home schooling, parallel work etc. did impact us as well and there was almost no time for any other activities. Now, as the situation has relaxed, you can expect again some insights in modern procurement engineering and cost / value engineering approaches.

Today I want to share some thoughts why „product disassembly“ is an important lever in the design to value process and how you can use it to generate a competitive advantage. So, why should you do product disassembly?

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Product Cost Management during an R&D Project – Part 1

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Introduction to Product Cost Management

A company’s health and longevity are linked to how well it can sustain and grow its profits over time. From a simplified perspective, the company can achieve this longevity by (1) increasing its revenue, and/or (2) improving its profit margin. This six-part-series focuses on the later: improving profit margins via successful product cost management during an R&D project. The series includes the following sections:

  1. Set the Tone Early. Check Back with the Market Often.
  2. Create Transparency
  3. Communicate
  4. Teach & Empower
  5. Align Key Cost Decisions with Program Schedule
  6. Execute. And Document the Decision Logic.

The sections flow in chronological order, although it is important to know that many of these steps are only effective when they are sustained in parallel throughout the entire project timeline. This will become more clear as we progress through the sections together.

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First things to do after setting up a Procurement Engineering organization

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You have set up a new Procurement Engineering organization or you have identified some smart and engaged engineers / buyers and they will work in the future as Procurement Engineers. What are the first things you need to to in order to bring the organization up to speed and to create value. We have put together the most relevant things to do in the first 100 days.

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Questions you should ask in a job interview with a potential Procurement Engineer

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I expect that you as a reader of that blog are working in an environment where you either are running a Procurement Engineering Organization or you are interested in that topic because you want to build up such an Organization. In both cases there are job interviews are waiting for you and the following overview with some questions might help you.

These questions have been extensively used in various interviews and helped us to identify whether the candidate was or is the right one. Beside the focus on Procurement Engineering I would always recommend preparing a list of questions you want to ask as a kind of checklist to ensure that you ask the different candidates the same. Make notes during the interview. So more details you have so better. At the end of the interview make a summary. After you had all the interviews, sit down and review all interviews with your written notes. This prevents that you automatically select one of the last candidates as they are more present in your memory. I added to every question some background information why you should ask exactly this question and what is the expectation.

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Procurement tasks prior to the start of a R&D project

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The work of Procurement Engineering does not start with the kick-off of a R&D project. There are tons of tasks prior to the design work. The following post will provide a crisp list of necessary activities and tasks before the real design work starts. Before we go into the details we need to say goodbye to the idea that procurement buys stuff engineering has designed and the we start to work once the design is finished. When procurement is invited to discuss how to set up a cross-functional team to support the newest development project the responsible procurement engineer has already a full list with different home work activities. So, what is to do …?

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What is Procurement Engineering?

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If you search the web for “Procurement Engineering” you will find different job descriptions on websites like Stepstone or Monster but no further information about that function in procurement or engineering organizations around the globe. This is somehow surprising has the need for systematic involvement of procurement and supply chain management in the early phase of product development is emerging and gets more and more relevance. There is hardly no procurement conference where this topic is not on the agenda.  

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Procurement engineering: Wise design via global suppliers involvement

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It’s an unreachable target that request a design engineer today to have all aspects knowledge to develop a fancy product under age of knowledge explosion. Technology and science has developping so quickly and unevenly in all corners of the world. New material, novel manufacture methods, innovative processes are poping up everyday and everywhere. How to design a product not only meet functional requirements but also cost effective and manufacturefriendly is really an insteresting topic but also challenge, especially under today’s tough business situation and complex global business enviroment. Obviously, procurement engineering could provide one of the answer on this aspect through early global suppliers involvement.

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