Bethlehem Steel views people as assets
By Mark Brunelli -- Purchasing, 10/7/1999
Continuous training is listed as one of the core values of Bethlehem Steel, and this value shines brilliantly from the company's purchasing and transportation department. There, you won't find any "buyers," says the company's Vice President of Purchasing and Transportation and Chief Procurement Officer, Bob Rudzki. "We don't even use the term 'buyers' anymore."The reason for this, he says, is that the company's purchasing professionals are trained to do so much more than just buy. They negotiate, they strategically source, they mentor and learn from each other, and they communicate with other professionals at all links of the supply chain. Just calling them "buyers" wouldn't reflect all that they do for a living, believes Rudzki.
Rudzki says some of the job titles in the department now include general manager, strategic sourcing manager, senior sourcing specialist, sourcing specialist--and program managers and consultants, who sometimes don't have purchasing backgrounds at all but use their special skills and talents to add value to the group.
Training starts from day one, says Bill Ender, Bethlehem Steel's director of services, purchasing, and transportation. All training is designed to instill and nourish in the purchasing professional thirteen core competencies that purchasing management considers of paramount importance to the department and the company as a whole. Some of those competencies include leadership skills, cross-functional effectiveness, broad business knowledge, sourcing and supply chain management, market intelligence, market analysis knowledge, and others.
Ender says the company instills or encourages these competencies through a series of seminars and classes and mentoring and evaluation. Also, the company always encourages employees to take outside classes.
A new member of the purchasing and transportation department will first be given an overview of the sourcing process, and throughout the first year he or she will attend a strategic negotiation seminar, a steelmaking seminar, a corporate orientation program, and the mentoring program.
First-year employees at any job are very concerned with impressing the boss, and Ender says the mentoring program is a means for new purchasing professionals to ask questions without feeling embarrassed. An assigned mentor is responsible for checking in at least once a week to see if the new member of the team needs any help.
"We've had this going on now for several years, and it's going pretty well," Ender says of the mentoring program.
Ender says that throughout their career at Bethlehem Steel, members of the purchasing and transportation department take part in a performance appraisal process, where performance gaps are identified and decisions are made on how to bridge those gaps. Bridging a gap could mean that a person will have to take an additional class, either inside or outside the company, or it could mean being assigned a project that will bring out skills that are in need of development.
Bethlehem does not typically conduct purchasing operations over the Internet, but database technology and the company Intranet are integral to the department's day-to-day functions. Ender says most everyone is trained in basic personal computer skills followed by advanced training in the areas of database development and management, and presentations as well as Internet and intranet training.
"Basically anything from a systems arena that we need, we teach it in house," Ender says, adding that E.D.S teaches the lion's share of their computer classes.
The use of computers has led to the development of folks at Bethlehem Steel known as "super users." These are people who a few years back showed a great deal of promise on computer programs like Excel and were given the opportunity to take all the classes they needed to become computer experts. Now, Ender and Rudzki say, they are on hand to give whatever help is necessary to the department.
"Super users is a kind of train-the-trainer concept," Ender says. "I don't know what we would do without them, quite frankly."
Another way the purchasing pros at Bethlehem Steel continually learn is simply by working with each other on cross-functional teams. Rudzki says the department is cross-functional at its essence, because the workers have so many different types of skills.
When it comes time to trim the budget each year, Rudzki says he never tries to save money on the training of his employees because all that learning "is in the context of our philosophy that people are assets, and the opportunity for distinguishing ourselves from our competitors."
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