Development of supply management in project business

Abstract

Case company is operating in international project business area delivering large scale equipment which includes own manufacturing, direct deliveries from suppliers to work site and purchased erection and site services. Today case company’s customers are more focused on cost and delivery time of the equipment. Also competitors from cost competitive countries are penetrating to the markets, which are normally considered as westerners markets. Efficient management of the suppliers is critical from competitiveness, customer satisfaction and profitability point of view.

Study was conducted to case company’s supply management department. First objective of the study was to find out, are case company’s tools and processes relevant in managing suppliers. Second objective was to find out, how to measure supply management. Research method in this case study was qualitative. Adaptive supply chain management was used as a theoretical framework.

In this study, data was divided to primary and secondary data. Primary data came from the supplier interviews and multinational corporations benchmarks. Secondary data came from case company’s internal instructions, process descriptions and literature. Interviews were used to find out what kind of processes case company has and are processes aligned with other similar customers. Benchmarks were used to find out what kind of processes and tools other companies have.

Findings of this study were that the case company has a relevant tools and processes, which are aligned with other companies. Many supplier stated that the case company has better processes than others, but still improvement suggestions were given. Supply management is one of the key processes in the case company, which can be seen that the case company is developing supply management processes and tools vigorously.