ABSTRACT
Purchasing provides an acquisition service for the company while not requiring the goods itself. The role has changed from the 1980s administrative oriented activity management to today, with its emphasis on strategic supply chain facilitating and provides value adding activities such as quality improvement and cost reduction. Purchasing no longer needs to focus on order placement and economic ordering. Materials management specialists typically now take control of these issues, using advanced planning and control software such as SAP or BAAN. With reduced product life cycles, an ever increasing rate of new design releases and the constant search both internally and within the existing and potential supply base, purchasing must focus on preparing for the next product and improving performance while producing the existing good. Purchasing agents must work with process engineering to implement best practices, quality engineers that focus on process verification and stability, cost engineering that focus on efficient operations, transportation and other third party value-adding service providers.
