Eskom Procurement Book 2015

PROCUREMENT AS A SUPPORT AND STRATEGIC FUNCTION WITHIN COMPANIES

become vital as ways and means are found to shorten the time taken from requisition to receipt of the order.

4.5.5 EARLY SUPPLIER DESIGN INVOLVEMENT

Early involvement is the process of relying on suppliers early, physically or virtually, to provide support during strategic planning, demand and supply planning, continuous improvement projects, project planning and when developing new products and technologies. Early supplier design involvement includes working with key suppliers in the concept or design phase of new product and/or service development. Supplier involvement may be informal or formal, depending on the nature of the product or service procured and the desired nature of the relationship with a given supplier. It is desirable to involve suppliers early on in the design phase as it becomes increasingly difficult and costly to make design changes once the design has been fully developed and the engineering of the product begins. This is illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Design flexibility and cost of changes.

Research reveals that most organisations recognise the potential benefit of closer inter-organisational relationships. Research also reveals that teams that relied on supplier input and involvement (when the task warranted involvement) were more effective in their tasks, on average, than teams that did not involve suppliers. Teams that included suppliers as participants reported important outcomes: • Greater satisfaction concerning quality of information exchange between the team and key suppliers.

77 CHAPTER 4