Purchasing Management - Main Topics of Study

What is Purchasing?

  • Definition
  • Organisational buyers
  • Purchasing, profitability and added value
  • The evolution of purchasing
  • Purchasing and change
  • The status of purchasing

Purchasing Strategy

  • Definition
  • Levels of strategy
  • The strategic planning process
  • Purchasing strategy
  • Environmental scanning
  • Strategy formulation
  • Strategy implementation
  • Strategy evaluation and control
  • Strategic options

Purchasing Organisation

  • Organisational design and structure
  • Approaches to organisation structures
  • Centralised purchasing
  • Purchasing and its functional interfaces
  • The internal organisation of purchasing departments
  • Purchasing and supply in group undertakings
  • Horizontal organisations
  • Supply chain management
  • Materials management
  • Logistics management
  • The contribution of purchasing to supply chain management

Purchasing Procedures

  • Introduction
  • Traditional purchasing procedures
  • The inefficiencies of traditional procedures
  • Legal aspects of ordering procedures
  • The ‘battle of the forms’
  • Purchasing records
  • Small orders
  • Purchasing manuals

Purchasing and IT

  • Introduction
  • Management Information Systems (MIS)
  • Information Technology (IT)
  • IT and competitive advantage
  • Computer systems
  • Computer operation
  • A typical computerised purchasing application
  • Flowcharts
  • Essential features of a computerised supplies system
  • Some computer applications relevant to purchasing
  • Some advantages of computerised purchasing
  • Telecommunications and networks
  • Electronic commerce
  • Electronic data interchange
  • Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
  • Electonic mail
  • Smart cards
  • Bar coding
  • Electronic catalogues
  • Security and legal issues
  • The impact of IT on purchasing and supply

Human Resources in the Supply Chain

  • Introduction
  • Human resource planning
  • Job analysis
  • Recruitment and selection
  • Performance appraisal
  • Training and development
  • Purchasing and pay
  • Motivation, communication and commitment
  • Communication
  • The management of change
  • Teamwork and multinational teams
  • Management styles and leadership
  • Strategic aspects of HRM applied to purchasing

Specifying and Assuring the Quality of Suppliers

  • Introduction
  • What is quality?
  • The importance of TQM
  • The specification of quality
  • Product and production design and re-design specifications
  • Standardisation
  • Value analysis and engineering
  • The implementation of quality
  • Quality control and assurance
  • Quality systems
  • Independent quality assurance and certification
  • Tools for quality and reliability
  • Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
  • Quality circle and task teams
  • The cost of quality
  • Purchasing and quality

Matching Supply with Demand

  • Definitions
  • Inventory classifications
  • The aims of inventory management
  • The right quantity
  • Demand
  • The economics of stock management
  • ABC analysis
  • Variety reduction
  • Economic order quantities (EOQs)
  • The quantity discount model
  • Lead times
  • Forecasting demand
  • Fixed order and period review systems
  • Materials Requirements Planning (MRP)
  • Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP)
  • Just-In-Time purchasing (JIT)
  • Optimised Production Technology (OPT)
  • Lot sizing
  • Safety stocks and service levels
  • Special inventory factors

Sourcing

  • Sourcing levels
  • Sourcing information
  • Analysis of market conditions
  • Directives
  • Sources of supply
  • Suppliers assessment and appraisal
  • Supplier performance rating
  • The supplier base
  • Make or buy strategies and tactics
  • Outsourcing
  • Outsourcing purchasing
  • Tiering
  • International sourcing
  • Partnership sourcing
  • Forming successful partnerships
  • Reciprocal trade
  • Countertrade
  • Intra-company trading
  • Subcontracting
  • Local suppliers
  • Small or large suppliers
  • Sourcing decisions
  • Factors in deciding where to buy

Contrasting Approaches to Supply

  • Introduction
  • Industrial products
  • Capital investment items
  • Buying used equipment
  • Evaluating capital investments
  • Selecting suppliers of capital items
  • Leasing
  • The buyer and capital investment purchases
  • Production materials
  • Raw materials
  • Futures dealings
  • Methods of commodity dealings
  • Component parts and assemblies
  • Production materials and bills of materials
  • Consumables
  • Construction supplies and bills of quantities
  • Goods for resale in wholesaling and retailing

Storing Supplies

  • Storage and supplies
  • Type, location and siting of storage facilities
  • Storage and materials handling equipment
  • Assessment of storage requirements
  • Stores layout
  • Identification of stock items
  • Surplus

Controlling Prices and Costs

  • Price
  • The conditions for perfect competition
  • Imperfect competition and monopoly
  • UK competition legislation
  • Price information
  • Pricing agreements
  • Variations to firm and cost price agreements
  • Price analysis
  • Price variation and adjustment
  • Currency management
  • Incoterms

Support Tools

  • Tendering
  • Debriefing
  • Post-Tender Negotiation (PTN)
  • Forecasting techniques
  • Techniques of investment appraisal
  • Application of costing techniques
  • Life cycle costing
  • Target costing
  • Absorption costing
  • Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and management
  • Standard costing
  • Budgets and budgetary control
  • Learning curves
  • Project management
  • Scheduling
  • Models and simulation approaches

Negotiation

  • Introduction
  • Definitions
  • Approaches to negotiation
  • The content of negotiation
  • What is an effective negotiation?
  • Factors in negotiation
  • The process of negotiation
  • Pre-negotiation
  • The actual negotiation
  • Post-negotiation
  • Global negotiation

Purchasing Research, Performance and Ethics

  • Purchasing research
  • Purchasing performance and control
  • The aims of performance measures
  • The prevalence of purchasing performance measures
  • Principles of performance measures
  • Methods of evaluating purchasing performance
  • Accounting approaches
  • Comparative approaches
  • The purchasing management audit approach
  • Management by Objectives (MBO)
  • Purchasing and fraud
  • Whistle-blowing
  • Purchasing ethics

Recommended Reading

Main Text:

Purchasing & Supply Chain Management – Lysons & Farrington (FT Prentice Hall)