Purchasing Management

Abstract

The responsibility of the purchasing function is to ensure quality and economic supply of goods to the company’s operation. The objective is to secure optimal supplier performance with respect to quality, timely delivery, and minimum cost of purchased items. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to develop the satisfactory sources of supply and to maintain good relationships with these suppliers. In the past, the emphasis was to procure the product at minimum cost with less attention paid to quality and timing. Experience has shown that this was not the best course of action. The savings realized on minimum cost procurement has not been worth the cost of customer dissatisfaction due to quality problems. The cost and effectiveness of excessive safety stocks has not compensated for late or erratic delivery of material. At this time, quality, delivery and cost are quite properly treated with equal importance.