Within the manufacturing industry, where companies must acquire a considerable number of components and various goods and materials, operational costs can skyrocket in the procurement arena. As well as the number of suppliers for these supplies.
MAN Roland, which manufactures a wide range of offset printing machines for newspapers and the digital web, aimed to reduce spending in its purchasing department and also optimize its supply chain. Optimizing, according to Rudolf Kohlert, the company's purchasing director, meant reducing the number of suppliers from which it purchased materials. They achieved both goals by outsourcing the purchasing process from MAN Roland to Unitec.
Kohlert says that Germany-based Unitec has reduced the number of small suppliers (less than 50 Euro per year) used by MAN Roland from 160 to just one — Unitec. The provider's Web-enabled NetSourcing service coordinates MAN Roland orders for all suppliers on a single order form and has reduced invoices to just one per month — thus reducing the manufacturer's accounting and processing costs.
In addition to paperless purchasing, Unitec's eProcurement service includes order status tracking and rush delivery options. The site's database consists of more than 44,503 goods from 3,240 suppliers, with multilingual descriptions.
In addition to eProcurement services, Kohlert says MAN Roland selected Unitec as its outsourcing partner due to its expertise in C-part management concepts and efficiency. The company's Activity-Based Cost Analysis defined “C-parts” as those that represent five percent of total purchasing volume but have a high purchase order rate.
MAN Roland transitioned the work to Unitec over a period of two months, in phases across different purchasing departments and asset groups. MAN Roland's return on investment was more than just reduced costs; Freed from administrative tasks, your purchasing team was able to focus on more important activities.
