Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) of Valcourt, Quebec has been through a lot of changes in the past few years, but has emerged a stronger, more focused company—most notably in is purchasing operations and organization. Five years ago, the maker of all-terrain vehicles, personal watercraft and other recreational equipment was one of five business units within Bombardier Inc. While it functioned fairly independently from its parent company, BRP had no central strategic sourcing organization, limited communication across its purchasing organization, and more suppliers than it could manage.

In fact, the change that had the least impact may have been the actual spinoff from Bombardier in December 2003, when BRP was taken private. "We were already a very independent company at that time with our own supply base, so there was very little impact—positive or negative—as a result of the spinoff," says Jean Robitaille, director of strategic sourcing at BRP.

But BRP used its newfound independence to make some organizational improvements, including the creation of a centralized strategic sourcing organization within BRP (which Robitaille now manages), moving most of its 150 direct materials purchasing professionals to be located with development staff, and taking on a major supplier quality and rationalization effort.

Robitaille’s background in engineering, purchasing and supplier quality made him a good pick to head the new team. The 10-person strategic sourcing organization was created only two and a half years ago to "centralize the decentralization" in Robitaille’s words. This means pooling spend volumes across the business when possible, identifying and sharing procurement best practices and putting more spend with the best suppliers. BRP had actually begun a supplier rationalization initiative before the strategic sourcing organization was created, but the project became a top priority and has to date, cut its supply base by 50%.

Key to that initiative is a global supplier database that provides visibility into suppliers across the company. BRP has been investigating a low-cost country sourcing strategy, but to date, it has only sourced select materials from low-cost regions. Robitaille says he has investigated e-sourcing as well, but has not found the right technology to support the company’s goals.

"There is a big difference between scheduling meetings together and actually working together on a daily basis," he says. "We realize that 80% of the cost of a product is frozen once the drawing is released and the specification is done. So we really strive to have procurement working with development closely to avoid costs up front and consult on supplier issues. All of our products are designed that way now. The two organizations must have common goals." Buyers do both production buying as well as development sourcing for new products.

Alignment shift

In late 2005, BRP announced it was moving its ATV manufacturing operation from Quebec to Juarez, Mexico by 2007, where it currently manufacturers one of its personal watercraft lines. The ATV move will require finding a host of new suppliers and identifying existing suppliers that are willing to move to Mexico. BRP also has manufacturing sites in Finland, Austria, Quebec and Minnesota.

"We’re building a team now to survey suppliers in [Mexico]," says Robitaille. "We’re also working closely with the current supply base to see who is interested in coming with us. We will strongly support that move."