PURCHINEERING

How purchasing comes into play early on

Often there are different opinions in the departments about which component is the best: While the purchasing department prefers a product with a favorable price, an engineer chooses the best technical product.

of the interviewed companies said that purchasing decides which components are purchased

Source: Survey parts management and product development process in the industry, CADENAS 2015

In practice, an early involvement of purchasing happens way too seldom. Engineers develop a product on the basis of the required technical specifications. Afterwards a parts list is handed over to production planning. In consequence, the job of the purchasing department is only to procure the defined components at the best prices.

PURCHINEERING overcomes obstacles

PURCHINEERING is a combination of the words »purchase« and »engineering« and aims at the optimized cooperation of purchasing and engineering. Without an intensive cooperation of the purchasing and development departments, companies cannot fully realize their competitive edge.

Disadvantages due to a lack of cooperation between the purchasing & engineering departments

Preferred parts and suppliers are not defined
Components that could be procured externally are self-made, which is very costly (make-or-buy)
Components and suppliers are not selected in regard to the technical and economic features
No optimization of the process costs for C-parts, e.g. with Kanban