ULRICH

By Staff -- Purchasing, 11/2/2000

Name: Don Van Dam

Title: Materials Management Director

Company: Ulrich Chemical Inc., Indianapolis, Ind.

Reports to: Steve Hiatt, executive vice president

Education: Bachelor of Science in general business administration, Ball State University, Muncie, Ind.

Professional background: Twenty-four years' experience in purchasing and materials management. Twenty of those years are in the chemical industry, including the past 10 years with Ulrich.

Responsibilities: Van Dam manages the materials staff, which spends more than $40 million annually on a full line of chemicals, solvents and surfactants. He is directly responsible for sourcing such materials as caustic soda, caustic potash, sulfuric acid, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid, as well as phosphates and soda ash. The materials management department (purchasing) also works closely with the sales department to establish selling prices on our products.

Purchasing's role in chemical distribution: "Our department serves as a liaison between our suppliers and our customers, coordinating issues such as product quality, technical support, safety and handling, and pricing. We work closely with our sales force to understand and fill our customers' needs. We also work with our branches to ensure that they have the right products on hand for their customers. We stay abreast of the rapid changes in the chemical industry and try to build long-term relationships with our suppliers and customers."

Purchasing's challenges: "The chemical industry has undergone dramatic consolidation in the past few years. This has made it more important than ever to be a valued distributor that can bring more to the supply chain than just competitive pricing. Ulrich has always prided itself on being flexible and customer-focused, offering specialized delivery and packaging services to customers. Our flexibility has kept us competitive with national distributors."

Selecting the best suppliers: Ulrich has been involved in the National Association of Chemical Distributors' (nacd) Responsible Distribution Process (RDP). This program ties in with the Chemistry Council's responsible distribution initiative and reflects our commitment to work with quality-conscious suppliers. We do an annual vendor evaluation of our 25 largest-volume suppliers, which focuses on their strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. The evaluation culminates in a "Vendor of the Year" award dinner honoring the outstanding vendor for the previous year."

Areas for improvement: "A couple of areas for improvement in chemical procurement are developing supply chain relationships and eliminating redundant costs. We strive to build win-win relationships with our suppliers and customers that are built on trust, fairness, dependability and shared knowledge. With these aspects, mutual goals can be established that lead to growth and business success, and the elimination of supply chain redundancies, such as excessive inventories, expedited shipping services, duplicate paperwork and billing errors."

"E-commerce has the potential to aid in this process by reducing the time it takes to obtain information. The sharing of production plans between customer, distributor and producer also allow for combined inventories to be reduced and delivery costs to be consolidated."