Purchasers' Day 2018: Parts availability remains a priority
Recently, around 180 purchasing staff from the CLAAS Group got together at Ravensberger Park in Bielefeld to take a look back at the past financial year and jointly discuss the activities for the next financial year, as well as the long-term strategy. On this occasion, the prizes for "Purchaser of the Year" were also awarded.
The event was kicked off by Rüdiger Mohr, Vice President Corporate Purchasing of the CLAAS Group, who welcomed all new purchasing staff to the company. Next, Hans Lampert informed the attendees about the latest business developments and presented the outlook for 2019. In particular, he emphasised the opportunities and possibilities that the ongoing process of digitalisation will open up for CLAAS. Rüdiger Mohr reflected upon the purchasing activities that took place in 2018, a year in which the availability of parts was an ongoing issue. This is expected to continue into the 2019 financial year. In order to ensure supplier delivery capabilities and flexibility, Rüdiger Mohr set the structured improvement of the CLAAS supplier portfolio as a target for 2019. This can be achieved by acquiring new suppliers and also improving the performance of existing suppliers. There will be an effort within the framework of a "Supplier Improvement Initiative" (SII) focusing on production over the course of several years.
Lena Betzel, Lead Buyer Hydraulics of CSE, and Patrick Frings, Lead Buyer Power Pac of the CLAAS Group, presented a successful example of the application of game theory in requests for tender.
Gerald Strauss from the Market Intelligence department gave an overview of developments in the agricultural technology market.
Dr. Emmanuel Siregar, Authorized Company Representative for Human Resources, presented the organisation and future direction of the human resources department as a business partner, commented on his first impressions of the CLAAS Group and explained his expectations for future purchasing staff. Purchasers will increasingly act as risk managers, cost analysts and drivers of innovation.
The highlight of the first day was the presentation of the prize for "Purchaser of the Year 2018". This prize is awarded annually to recognise outstanding results and team performance.
The second day started with a discussion on the topic of roadmapping for the business units of Grain, Tractor and Forage. The new Supplier Portal, a software platform for communication with suppliers, was presented. This contains three modules: Purchasing (SPP), Quality (SPQ) and Logistics (SPL).
Sébastien Bigot gave an overview of the challenges and objectives of the recently started "Small Tractor" project. Martin Hawlas, Head of Corporate R&D, drew attention to the importance of the "Target Cost Excellence" topic together with Steffen Tiemann, Head of Product Cost Optimization at Corporate Purchasing. This project is aiming to improve profitability by, for example, defining concepts on a cross-functional basis at an earlier stage.
Rüdiger Mohr used the Mentimeter web application for all Purchasers to participate in the development of the new Purchasing Strategy 2030.
As an important and permanent point of information, Michael Potthast, Head of PRM, presented recent successful best practices in Purchasing.