April 30, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

You know I love to hate the Quality Department, not because they are bad people or that they are bad at their job, but because they always give the supply chain department bad news.  

 

I talk to the guys and gals in quality all the time, but they only come to me with bad news. One of my good friends Alex came up to me and tells me “Bad news, Supplier X’s product does not meet the tolerances.”

At this, I ususally go into a defensive posture and ask “what’s the issue?” He goes into his spiel, and I find that it is really not as bad as I was thinking or as bad as he was indicating. 

What I came to discover is that the product is usable, but only slightly out of tolerance and al...Read More

Industries: Career/Jobs, Strategic Sourcing

April 17, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

In regards to my recent post on communication, Karen, a recruitment professional from New Zealand, said she’s looking for a mid level global sourcing specialist, and asked, "if you were looking [to fill] such a role for a manufacturing electronics contract manufacturer, and the ideal experienced individual wasn't out there—what fundamental skill sets do you think would be necessary?”

 

So I have to say that I am a big believer in promoting people from within your organizaiton. About two years ago, I was asked to hire a senior commodity manager to help support my outsourcing goals. I posted the requisition and had about 100 people apply for the j...Read More

Industries: Career/Jobs, Strategic Sourcing

April 11, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In regards to my last blog post, “Target pricing: Will your target hit the Target”, reader Jim Smith wrote “I don't think it is dangerous to be frank and say exactly what you need, unless of course you haven't done your homework.” You know Jim, I agree!  I think that being frank is very important, and I tend to lean that way more often than not, but it is good to know when frankness is required. That brings me to what I think Jim’s point is, and that is relationships.  

I have multiple suppliers that I deal with and my main problem is switching my personality to best match that of the person I am dealing with. (As a side note, there are lost of classes out there that will help you determine your personality type and who you work...Read More
Industries: Career/Jobs, Strategic Sourcing

March 28, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

Recently I have found myself falling in the trap of giving target pricing up front, and not surprisingly, my supplier loves it. That may not be true, but I feel that way. I was in a  meeting recently negotiatiog the cost of a product, when the supplier said, “just give me your target price” and well I did. About two seconds later he said “ Ok, well hit it” and we where done.

 

Now in any negotiation class they say the best negotiation is the one where both win, but I always ask myself, “how much did I just leave on the table?” I always picture the supplier walking away smiling and giving each other high fives, and I am scratching my head. My buddy always says “if you feel like you got a good deal, then you did. Don’t wo...Read More

Industries: Career/Jobs, Strategic Sourcing

March 24, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

Welcome to my first blog! On my first trip to Taiwan I sat in a meeting and wondered about the presentation being shown to me. I asked the guy next to me, “Can you understand him?” He said “nope, you?” So I raised my hand and started to ask questions. At the end of the meeting and after a few questions I found that ~60% of our team and ~80% of theirs did not get the meaning of most of the material presented. If you think that is staggering, 90% of the acronyms we used did not translate, and if your industry is like mine, most of what you say is an acronym. To help offset our need for acronyms, I ended up sitting down with my counter part and developed a quick definitions page. This took about 20 minutes, but really saved us a lot of time in future meetings. The funny thing is, I found out that out of the ~100 definitions I knew only the exact meaning of about 50%...Read More