Engineering sees value of purchasing involvement in the design process
By Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 9/7/2006 6:00:00 AM
Purchasing must be involved in grassroots efforts at companies to work more closely with suppliers during the design process, say engineering managers who sat on a panel discussing “achieving cost goals across the supply chain” during the International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly held recently in Warwick, R.I.
For the 21 years that product development software provider Boothroyd Dewhurst has hosted the conference, the more lively discussions usually arise during the panel session, once the moderator opens questions to attendees. On the panel at this year’s conference were Robin Cooper, a management accounting professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School; Mike Shipulski, director of engineering at Hypertherm in Hanover, N.H.; Alfredo Herrera, airframe design engineer, The Boeing Co. in Mesa, Ariz. and Jeremy Young of Farmington, Conn. After brief introductory comments from each speaker, conference attendees, who are mainly users of Boothroyd Dewhurst’s tools, peppered the panel with questions, mainly on purchasing’s involvement in the design process and its relationship with suppliers.
At Boeing’s military aircraft and missile systems facility, “we do have a good line of communication with our suppliers through our supplier quality management organization,” says Herrera. “We always like to bring the suppliers on board early during the engineering design process. That way, we understand their capabilities and they understand our expectations. If they need any help from us, we will happily go ahead and do it, because we consider the relationship an alliance.”
Not every relationship between buyers and suppliers needs to be—or can be—an alliance. Using purchasing operations at companies he’s observed in Japan such as Komatsu as an example, Cooper pointed out the value of differentiating between relationships with suppliers.
“The amount of energy purchasing puts into relationships with suppliers is directly related to how important they are to the strategic mission of the operation.” For instance, purchasing would form an alliance with a supplier deemed critical to the company’s overall goals and objectives.
The panel recognized the need for companies to develop stronger relationships with their suppliers similarly to those managed by companies in Japan, and acknowledged that trust, or the lack of it, between the two parties in the U.S. may be an inhibitor.
Shipulski suggested that purchasing begin to build trust that may have been lost by selecting a supplier that the company really wants to develop. “Anything you say to suppliers that you mistreated over the years is not going to change anything,” he says. “So, start with one and then, maybe over the course of time, you may get suppliers believing it’s okay to work with you again.”
Herrera reiterated the importance of creating an alliance where suppliers understand purchasing’s expectations. “We’ve had suppliers go through some financial problems and we’ve helped them work through them. If they don’t succeed, we don’t succeed. It’s that important.”
Cooper doesn’t see anything stopping purchasing “from evolving much richer forms of relationships” in the U.S. “It’s just that purchasing has to prove that it’s going to behave in the right way and live up to that. That sends a signal throughout the organization for a grassroots effort to take hold. Then, engineers (at the buying company) will be working with engineers (at the supplier company).”
The panel agreed that while valuable, the effort takes resources. Yet, “you don’t ever pull the plug on working to develop these relationships with suppliers,” says Shipulski. “Even if it’s hard, you don’t give up because it’s the right thing to do. Real leaders don’t stop ever.”
Herrera recalled an experience with a supplier that couldn’t meet Boeing’s expectations. “We had to make the decision to pull out of the relationship until they caught up and we were able to qualify them,” he says. “We brought the manufacturing in-house. But we are still working with them. They continue being our supplier.”
Young was a dissenter in the argument for involving purchasing in the design process. “I think there’s a need to eliminate the number of players in the chain,” he says. “Working through the supply chain is ripe for losing information. Getting engineer-to-engineer contact to exchange knowledge is critical.”
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