Procurement Cycle
1.A user department:
–identifies a need for purchased materials
–examines materials available and prepares specifications
–checks departmental budgets and gets clearance to purchase
–prepares and sends a purchase request to procurement.
2.Then procurement:
–receive, verify and check the purchase request
–examine the material requested, looking at current stocks, alternative products, production options, and so on –and after discussions with the user department confirm the decision to purchase
–make a shortlist of possible suppliers, from regular suppliers, lists of preferred suppliers, or those known to meet requirements
–send a request for quotations to this shortlist.
3.Then each supplier:
–examines the request for quotations
–checks the customer’s status, credit, and so on
–sees how it could best satisfy the order
–sends a quotation back to the organisation, giving details of products, prices and conditions.
4.Then procurement:
–examine the quotations and do commercial evaluations
–discuss technical aspects with the user department
–check budget details and clearance to purchase
–choose the best supplier, based on the details supplied
–discuss, negotiate and finalise terms and conditions with the supplier
–issue a purchase order for the materials (with terms and conditions attached).
5.Then the chosen supplier:
–receives, acknowledges and processes the purchase order
–organises all operations needed to supply the materials
–ships materials together with a shipping advice
–sends an invoice.
6.Then procurement:
–acknowledge receipt
–do any necessary follow-up and expediting
–receive, inspect and accept the materials
–notify the user department of materials received
7.Then the user department:
–receives and checks the materials
–authorises transfer from budgets
–updates inventory records
–uses the materials as needed.
8.Then procurement:
–arrange payment of the supplier’s invoice.
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•In recent years a lot of work has been done to reduce both the cost and time for procurement.
•Some of these methods are fairly simple. Blanket orders, for example, use a single order to cover regular deliveries of materials over some specified time in the future.
•Value analysis uses a team of people from different functional areas to find substitute materials that are lower in price but equally as good as the original.
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Problems with paper-based procurement include:
•taking a long time to go through the whole procedure
•relying on a lot of forms and paperwork which move around different locations
•needing a lot of people to complete, analyse, process, store and generally deal with all the paper
•having other people to supervise, manage and control the administrative procedures
•inevitable errors with so many documents and people involved
•not giving attention to related systems, such as stock control.