Does your role involve buying business critical parts and components? How do all these elements compare between your 'preferred supplier base?' vendors?
There are often many questions to ask and lots of specifications to research potentially with the answers buried in documentation in folders and binders littered throughout the company. The search is on and as usual, time is of the essence.
Is Cheaper Always Better?
Comparing proposals can be tough. Would switching to a new vendor really be beneficial? Are production costs overseas really cheaper, or was the lower price only possible by ordering a lesser quality? No – cheaper is not always a good deal. Sometimes proposals look very similar on the surface. Even the conditions could be the same, but the end result from a vendor can vary greatly. The larger problem is that all of your vendor documents from years past haven’t been systematically filed away to make searching quick and easy.
Paid Too Much, Received Too Little?
You receive a shipment with a delivery slip in the warehouse and an invoice soon follows. This can mean making multiple copies. Such as a copy for the receiving clerk will need the delivery slip to verify what was actually received, other departments may need the slip for inventory control and stock pulling for manufacturing purposes in addition to a copy to verify the invoice for payment. This takes time, can be costly and environmentally, is not efficient.
Analysis of Product Details
Purchasing needs to analyse and consider all kinds of product parameters. If they don’t, expensive mistakes may be made
All Specs, All the Time
With DocuWare, the product specifications from decades past are retained in a well-structured manner. They are archived along with index criteria – such as type, date and vendor. Want to see a specific document? It’s easy to search and locate via index entries. Another option is to run a full text search, to look for any tiny detail such as a part number. In this way, all specs are available at once – regardless if you are accessing the documents via an ERP system or through DocuWare. Empowered with information, you’re sure to avoid expensive mistakes when re-ordering or switching vendors.
