The Executive's Guide to Supply Management Strategies

"The new internal focus on satisfying the individual or team need has resulted in a wave of purchasing practices that do not conform to the original intent of a common centralized function."

"Chrysler's new design center actually colocates its engineers and designers with supplier's resources to encourage the ultimate in collaboration and shorter cycle times."

"Many companies have encouraged a collaboration of their suppliers to more effectively devise solutions to their product development equation."

"The most competitively advantaged businesses bring with them a wealth of practice and process expertise that can be used to redesign the purchaser's usage process."

"The new role of the supply manager is to access the marketplace through a network of best suppliers."

"The supply management process enables the supply manager of a particular supply stream to continually improve his or her knowledge of the marketplace, suppliers' costs, and best industry practices."

"The suppliers with the most competitive advantage tend to have the following characteristics."

"Value chain mapping is the analytical process of examining which steps and tasks add value and which do not."

"The total cost of ownership of the supply delivery system is the sum of all costs associated with every facet of the supply stream."

"The supply management process delivers three stages of cost and strategic/market benefits."

"Each supplier consolidation and purchase effort for a business should begin by answering two questions."

"The supply leader has the following tasks."

"In our experience the local supply leaders and supply-stream leaders are the best equipped to resource these periodic reviews with up-to-date information on supply stream and location implementation progress."

"The effectiveness of a material or service stream is determined by understanding the cost and time components for the total stream of use."

"These beliefs culminate in a significant tangible new metric, which will forever change your supply side annual planning: the recognition that these practices create negative inflation."

"By sharing your models of success with the supply community, you set the same expectation for performance as you do with your supply management organization."