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But change management is significantly more difficult when the technology deployed is used not just internally, but also by key trading partners. The most common form of trading partner collaboration is purchase order collaboration. 18,000 suppliers ship 70,000 different types of parts to 72 Molex manufacturing plants across the globe.
5000 developers are working on product enhancements and extensions to the SAP spend management suite. Spend Management Takeaways SAP continues to invest in using generative AI to improve the user experience. While SAP has had procurementanalytics solutions, last year at Spend Connect Live, SAP announced the Spend Control Tower.
Fragmented systems, rising cost pressures, and shifting risk profiles are making it harder than ever to manageprocurement effectively. But what does it actually take to regain control and build a procurement strategy that’s both resilient and scalable? How do you begin developing a procurement strategy?
Direct and indirect procurement are two fundamental approaches in supply chain management, each serving distinct functions within an organization. Both focus on improving efficiency and reducing costs but differ in their strategic approach and impact on the core business operations. Find Out More What Is Procurement?
Fragmented systems, rising cost pressures, and shifting risk profiles are making it harder than ever to manageprocurement effectively. But what does it actually take to regain control and build a procurement strategy that’s both resilient and scalable? How do you begin developing a procurement strategy?
Background Most of the clients that I am working with are working on two large supply chain initiatives: Implementation of SAP RISE and Compliance with the EU Digital Product Passport initiative. To build an outside-in model, and use new forms of analytics, we must start the discussion with the question of, “what drives value?”
Procurement and supply chain management are often used interchangeably—but in practice, the lines between them can blur in ways that create real friction. Misaligned priorities, siloed systems, and unclear ownership can directly impact key performance indicators like costsavings percentage and procurement cycle time.
Indirect procurement sometimes flies under the radar, but its impact on cost, compliance, and efficiency can be significant. For many enterprise teams, managing indirect spend feels like a reactive process that’s out of sync with business goals. What Is Indirect Procurement?
Strategic sourcing and innovative solutions are often viewed as two distinct procurement tools, but they should not be seen in isolation. Think of them as apples and gearseach essential and effective on its own, yet when combined; they create a formidable mechanism for achieving procurement excellence.
However, as carbon taxes and emissions reporting requirements continue increasing, supply chain professionals face mounting pressures from inside and outside their organizations to measure and improve performance against new, nebulous sustainability metrics. Sustainability is high on the list of favorite corporate buzzwords.
However, this approach ignores real purchasing behavior, such as customers buying complete sets of four tires. Probabilistic demand forecasting, in contrast, provides a full probability distribution, revealing actual purchasing patterns and enabling inventory planners to align stock levels with demand realities. The result?
Advanced supply chain planning is being transformed by probabilistic forecasting , which revolutionizes demand forecasting, supply planning, and inventory optimization. However, this approach ignores real purchasing behavior, such as customers buying complete sets of four tires. The result?
If you’re evaluating procurement technology or exploring ways to drive more value from existing systems, chances are you’re looking beyond tactical fixes – you want a smarter, scalable strategy. Misaligned priorities across finance, legal, and procurement create friction that delays decision-making and reduces impact.
In today’s dynamic market, procurement is far more than just a buying and purchasing center. Forward-thinking organizations have transformed the department into an untapped gold mine that creates value for the entire end-to-end manufacturing process—from design and sourcing to production and delivery.
Simply by searching for a pair of shoes within an intuitive user interface, users are given a seemingly limitless amount of choices each with prices, photos, measurements, and any other metric a shopper could desire. Worse yet, their responsibilities are far more important than purchasing a pair of sporty sneakers.
In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Supply chain was defined in 1982 as interoperability between source, make and deliver. The concept was that managing trade-offs and optimizing the whole to drive business outcomes would improve value.
What Is Strategic Sourcing? A Complete Guide Strategic sourcing is a data-driven approach to securing the best value for your organization from its strategic suppliers. It is called strategic because it replaces traditional ad hoc approaches to sourcing, which were almost entirely focused on costsavings, item by item.
Supply chain efficiency is the cornerstone of success and involves the effective management of processes, resources, and technologies from procurement to production, transportation to warehousing. In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducing inventory costs and delivery times.
Every Procurement organization is faced with the need to deliver costsavings. But virtually every Procurement organization ignores or gives lip service to an area that promises substantial savings opportunity: Tail spend. Why does it not get the attention that its saving potential promises?
Click the link to download the results of the quantitative report completed at this time five years ago.) Here are some key insights from the report/study completed during the pandemic to remind us: Six months to Adjust. Supply Risk Management is Not Supply Chain Risk Management. Organizations Rallied to Work Together.
In a fast-evolving industrial landscape shaped by globalization, customer expectations, and digital disruption, manufacturers are under immense pressure to modernize their supply chain operations. A 2024 report by Expert Market Research forecasts the global digital supply chain market will reach $18.3
Introduction Gardner, (1954) and Huntzinger, (2007) define Purchase price variance (PPV) as a metric used to measure the effectiveness of cost-saving efforts by calculating the difference between the planned cost (standard pricing) allocated for purchasing activities and the actual cost incurred.
Definition: Category management is a systematic way to organize and supervise groups of products or services within a company. Businesses often use it in retail and purchasing. In category management, you sort items with similar characteristics and treat each group as a separate unit.
How MES is Shaping the Future of Manufacturing and Boosting Production Efficiency What is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES)? A manufacturing execution system (MES) is a comprehensive, dynamic software system that monitors, tracks, documents, and controls the process of manufacturing goodsfrom raw materials to finished products.
Companies often push aside procurement compliance to focus on more pressing issues. No wonder—procurement often gets tedious and burdened with time-consuming processes. However, ignoring procurement compliance is like ignoring a ticking time bomb. Scroll down to find out: What is procurement compliance?
I am a big believer in procurement getting involved as early as possible in new product development based on all the market knowledge available. The worst-case scenario is product engineering developing a new product, selecting a supplier and then telling procurement to get on with negotiation. How often do your purchase orders change?
Keeping track of all your moving parts in manufacturing is a tall order. That’s where manufacturing inventory management software comes in. The right software can streamline your production, optimize stock levels, and even help you save money. Spreadsheets just don’t cut it anymore.
Supply chain management typically does not fit very well with procurement, which is a challenge at the best of times, and can be a disaster in difficult times. We need to rewrite these systems and introduce new taxonomies to manage hyper-variability. Procurement must adjust accordingly. And for a number of reasons.
Today’s fast-moving supply networks demand more than intuition; they require systems thinking, digital fluency, and strong data skills. A Masters in Management Information Systems, especially earned online, offers a practical edge. Blending IT and management concepts, the degree helps them design leaner, more adaptable operations.
They integrate finance, HR, sales, and supply chain management into one complex platform. Within this setup, an ERP procurement module helps companies make purchases and manage suppliers. Numbers speak louder: According to Procurement Tactics’ top procurement trends in 2025 , 83% of CPOs prioritize digitization.
Manufacturing Sectors Client Alert Foreign adversaries are increasingly threatening vital domestic industries through current and potential future restrictions on critical mineral exports. government procurement of critical components. Background Nickel and titanium are critical to the aerospace manufacturing sector.
What Contractors Need to Streamline Procurement in 2025 By Ian Summers (pictured) Content Writer 111 Views You’re on-site before dawn, the framing crew’s ready, but the steel shipment’s stuck in limbo, the invoice isn’t approved, and your project management app just pinged you for the fourth time.
How AI is TransformingManufacturing: Strategies, Benefits, and Use Cases Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a huge topic and one that is constantly changing as research and development efforts push out the boundaries of whats possibleand whats already happening! Manufacturers now generate and own vast volumes of it.
Insights from a Former ProcurementManager People often ask me why I left FORVIA, a French global automotive supplier, to join QAD. In todays fast-paced business environment, digitalization has become a cornerstone of operational success, particularly in the realm of purchasing.
The Digital Supply Chain Journey: Step 2 – DigitalTransformation Leadership! The Digital Supply Chain is the future. Electronic connectivity is THE backbone that makes the Digital Supply Chain a reality. Faxes, paper purchase orders, typewritten lists of anything and everything, memos, and on and on.
This week, the organization reported that net sales decreased 2 percent to $19.5 On our second priority, we delivered another strong year of industry-leading productivity, with holistic margin managementcostsavings of 5% of the cost of goods sold. Outsourced manufacturing had a bullwhip of 8-9. The result?
Advances in automation, sensors, analytics, and other technologies have made significant changes in manufacturing. A modern manufacturing ERP system will make use of these technologies so that their benefits can be realized. Two major transformational changes have occurred in manufacturing.
Depending on the nature of your business, your trading partners or your location, this could include procurement strategies, demand planning, logistics, and global trade management among others. Mastering Direct Spend ManagementProcurement teams generally do not report to the chief supply chain officer.
Rising costs, supply chain chaos, and economic swings put businesses under enormous pressure to protect their margins. According to McKinsey & Company, procurement accounts for 50% to 80% of a company’s cost base. That’s why organizations zero in on strategies to achieve procurementcost reduction.
Below are the individual web links and prime takeaway messages from each of our prior postings: Part One : Michael observed that standard sourcing solutions struggle to support direct materials sourcing because of specific challenges in legacy software design.
For 58 years, food and beverage and consumer goods manufacturers have battled for dominance, from chips and wings to soda, beer, party supplies, and even aluminum foil for food storage and DIY trophies. Manufacturers that dont plan ahead will lose the game. That takes a data-driven approach to forecasting, procurement and distribution.
Bowman, SupplyChainBrain The science of forensic chemistry, familiar to millions of viewers of crime dramas on TV and film, is playing a key role today in tracing the source of products all the way back to their origin. Photo: iStock.com/Gujiang xie July 28, 2025 Robert J.
For over a decade, manufacturing has been caught in a perplexing paradox. While I have watched the advent of transformative technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, and advanced Big Data and Analytics, productivity growth has remained stubbornly flat for the past 15 years. Industry 4.0
Automotive distributors play a vital role in the automotive supply chain by procuring parts, warehousing them, and then supplying them to OEMs (original equipment manufacturer), retailers or end consumers. The data can be used to identify inefficiencies in the supply chain, improve inventory management, and streamline operations.
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