What’s more we can expected from regional procurement hub?

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Global sourcing & Regional procurement hub

Global sourcing, as a big lever to reduce product cost, plays a critical role for a company, especially for multinational corporation’s (MNCs). Herewith regional procurement hub is one key organization set up in this aspect. To support on regular daily sourcing activities and benefit from cost is the key responsibility, like supplier negotiation, quality control, expediting, coordination. Does that mean everything for a regional procurement hub? What’s more regional hub could contribute, and how the future organization to adapt the business demand? Continue reading →

Engineering as key for global value sourcing (GVS) and how to estimate the GVS potential

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Globalization is one of the „current“ mega trends. This means for you as a procurement guy that one of the biggest levers for cost reduction is „global value sourcing“, which does not mean anything else than that you select the most competitive supplier from all over the world and you don’t limit yourself to a certain region. In the following article we will deal with the questions how to identify the right components and services for global value sourcing and how engineering can help you in procurement to get the most out of global value sourcing.

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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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Why to employ Cost Engineers while Procurement Engineers are available?

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What is the difference between Procurement and Cost Engineers and is it worth to have both in the team setup? This will be very roughly discussed by using an example and providing a guideline when this might make sense for a company. As always there is no simple answer. Some facts might help to make the decision: size of company; size of commodity, complexity of commodity & skill set of procurement engineers. Fact is that both roles (should) have at least 50% overlap in their expertise.

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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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Active procurement role on driving big cost out projects

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Supply chain management (SCM) has developed and changed so quickly to meet new business mode and market requirements today. Procurement as one of most important element in SCM is also undergoing significant change, which in sequence impacts its role and responsibility in whole organization. What’s new from procurement to bring bigger impact on business is really an interesting topic worth to understand and explore. This post to explain how procurement acts as a more active role and brings impact in one localization (cost out) project based on author’s experience. In here, Procurement engineer plays the interface/lead role from procurement organization.

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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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When is the right time to involve Procurement in the R&D Process?

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If someone is asked when certain organizations shall be involved in a new project, normally the standard answer is “as early as possible”? But  why? Parts are procured once they are designed and not earlier. So why should there be an additional interface in the R&D organization, which makes the whole development process more complex, time consuming, and in certain cases more difficult for the designer ;-)? 

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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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