Purchasing and Supply Chain aims to equip Learners with an understanding of how effective purchasing and supply management can influence an organisation’s competitive position.
Main Topics of Study:
Human Resources in the Supply Chain
- Strategic aspects of HRM applied to purchasing
- Human resource planning-job analysis, recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, training and development, purchasing and pay, motivation
- Management
- ~Change
- ~Teamwork
- ~Globalisation and multinational teams
- ~Styles and leadership
Specifying and Assuring the Quality of Suppliers
- Quality management-TQM, specifying quality, quality control and assurance, quality systems, independent assurance and certification
- Product and production design and re-design specifications
- Standardisation
- Value analysis and engineering
- Tools for quality and reliability- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), quality circles and task teams
- The cost of quality
- Sourcing Supplies
- ~Sourcing levels
- ~Sourcing information
- ~Analysis of market conditions
- ~Directives
- ~Sources of supply-make or buy decisions, outsourcing, international sourcing, partnership sourcing, tiering
- ~Suppliers assessment and appraisal-supplier base, supplier performance rating
- ~Types of supply-reciprocal trade and countertrade, intra-company trading, sub-contracting, local suppliers, small and large suppliers
- ~Factors in deciding where to buy
- ~Negotiation-stages in the negotiating process
Matching Supply with Demand
- Inventory classifications- ABC analysis
- The aims of inventory management
- The right quantity-variety reduction
- Forecasting demand
- The economics of stock management- Economic Order Quantities (EOQs), the quantity discount model, lead times, fixed order and period review systems
- Techniques-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
- Stores Management-storage facilities, handling stores, identifying items, surplus stores
Resource Management and Purchasing
- Controlling Prices and Costs
- ~Price-price information, pricing agreements
- ~Perfect competition, imperfect competition, monopoly
- ~Variations to firm and cost price agreements
- ~Price analysis
- ~Price variation and adjustment
- ~Currency management
- ~Incoterms
- Support Tools
- Tendering
- Forecasting techniques
- Techniques of investment appraisal
- Costing-life-cycle, target costing, absorption costing, activity-based costing, standard costing, costing techniques
- Budgets and budgetary control
- Learning curves
- Project management
- Scheduling
- Models and simulation approaches
Example Candidate Response Booklet
Example Candidate Response (ECR) Booklets are a source of crucial information for Centres and Candidates as they use real candidate responses. We ask Senior Examiners to comment on five or more responses in terms of why the mark was awarded with commentary about how to improve the answer (if necessary).
