ABSTRACT
Contents Availability of Materials .....................................................................................180 Production Buffers ............................................................................................181 Purchasing for Stock Based on Forecasts ............................................................181 Vendor Relationships.........................................................................................183 Special Orders ...................................................................................................184 Reference...........................................................................................................186
Managers of supply chains often focus attention on a variety of issues, while paying little attention to their raw materials management. But is there any real difference in the process a manufacturing company uses to purchase its raw materials compared to the process of a distributor purchasing the items to be sold? Certainly, at the conceptual level there would seem to be no real difference. In practice, however, several differences merit careful attention. These include:
