Cheap is Cheap – Buyer Beware!

A couple weeks ago I posted about Cheap is Cheap – Buyer Beware!

I discussed how buying cheap lets entropy into your organizations. We are seeing this play out in real time with the Boeing 737-MAX, DO NOT let this happen to your organization! It looks as though Boeing went with a low price contractor. Here are five things that can help you to avoid this type of error.

Do you have a buyers in a purchasing department or commodity specialist in a procurement departments?

Ask these five questions.

1. What percent of the team are professionals with education and certification supply chain or procurement management.
2. Who does procurement report into? If it’s finance, I can guarantee they are focused on the incorrect metrics.
3. What percent of the time do you reward contact to the lowest price bid?
4. Do you have a supplier score card and are the rankings credible?
5. What percent of suppliers are jointly working with procurement, supplier quality engineering and design engineering to reduce total cost?

Lastly:

1. Staff a department with unskilled workers, you create a cost center.
2. Staff a department with skilled professionals, you create a profit center.

Below is my original post from July 8, 2019.

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A quick way of adding Entropy into your organization is via purchasing.

If you’re always buying from the lowest price vendor, you’re running a purchasing department.

If you’re working to understand the TOTAL cost of ownership and rewarding suppliers that support; excellent customer service, flexibility delivery, outstanding quality and jointly deliver ongoing cost reductions, you have a world class procurement function that builds supplier partnerships.

The best way of becoming an Entropy Busters™ zealot. Never open the door and let it in…

Ask yourself and the team these three questions.

1. What percent do we reward contact to the lowest price bid?
2. Do we have a supplier score card and are the rankings credible?
3. What percent of suppliers are jointly working with procurement, supplier quality engineering and design engineering?

If you don’t readily have the answers to these questions, you’re letting entropy into the process.