Purchasers’ Day of the CLAAS Group – Purchasers of the Year 2016 awarded
At the beginning of November, Purchasers from all our sites met in Halle / Westfalen, near Harsewinkel, for the Purchasers’ Day of the CLAAS Group. Rüdiger Mohr, VP Corporate Purchasing, and Hans Lampert, Member of the CLAAS Group Executive Board, opened the event and welcomed the 160 participants.
Hans Lampert talked about the latest business developments and provided an outlook to 2017, which will be another year characterised by a weak agricultural machinery market.
Rüdiger Mohr took a look back at a very successful year of purchasing and mentioned some of the important actions which are being taken to protect the profitability of the CLAAS Group in 2017. These include concentrating on preferred suppliers and Global Sourcing.
Lead buyers and Purchasers presented best practices. They covered topics such as the activities being undertaken as part of the "CLAAS Super Saver Program" and the organisational structure of CSP Purchasing as well as news from the field of Purchasing Intelligence (purchasing data management and analysis in SAP BI and the introduction of a new purchasing software which will also be used by the neighbouring departments of Logistics and Quality).
The second part of the event was presented by Timo Rickermann, Head of Central Purchasing at DMG Mori AG (the world's largest machine tool manufacturer and a supplier to the CLAAS Group). Following the participants were able to view the production facility of DMG Mori in Bielefeld.
This year, Rüdiger Mohr welcomed Norbert Große Entrup from the RWTH Aachen University as guest speaker. In his talk, Norbert Große Entrup presented the basic principles of Lean Management and reported on the systems and methods required for its successful implementation and application in companies.
The award ceremony for "Purchaser of the Year" was both the highlight and official conclusion of the event. This prize is awarded annually to recognise outstanding results and team performance.