These outsourcing relationships were nominated for the 2002 Editor’s Choice Awards. www.outsourcing-journal.com Author Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
In the manufacturing industry, where companies must procure a significant number of components as well as various goods and materials, procurement operating costs can skyrocket. The same applies to the number of suppliers for these materials.
MAN Roland, which manufactures an extensive range of newspaper and digital web offset printing machines, aimed to reduce its procurement department's expenses while optimizing its supply chain. According to Rudolf Kohlert, the company's head of procurement, optimization means reducing the number of suppliers from which materials are purchased. Both goals were achieved by MAN Roland adapting its procurement process to Unitec outsourced.
Kohlert says that Germany-based Unitec reduced the number of small suppliers (under 50 euros per year) used by MAN Roland from 160 to just one - Unitec. The service provider's NetSourcing service with web functionality coordinates MAN Roland's orders for all suppliers in one order form and has reduced invoices to just one per month - reducing the manufacturer's accounting and processing costs.
In addition to paperless procurement, Unitec's eProcurement service includes order status tracking and urgent delivery options. The website's database includes more than 44,503 goods from 3,240 suppliers with multilingual descriptions.
In addition to eProcurement services, MAN selected Roland Unitec as an outsourcing partner due to its expertise in C-parts management concepts and efficiency. The company's Activity-Based Costing Analysis defined "C-parts" as those that account for five percent of total procurement volume but have a high order rate.
MAN Roland transferred the work to Unitec in phases over a two-month period according to different procurement departments and product groups. MAN Roland's return on investment wasn't just reduced costs; Freed from administrative tasks, its procurement staff could concentrate on more important activities.
