Defining Equipment Purchasing Concept for R&D Organisation

Abstract

This thesis explores approaches to purchasing laboratory equipment for an R&D organisation of the case company. The case company is going through a transition due to the ownership change. New testing laboratories are built and new equipment will be purchased to these laboratories. The equipment purchasing process for the R&D organisation of the case company is defined based on the findings from the current state analysis, literature and benchmarking.

The purchasing process is described from the perspective of R&D test equipment purchasing that involves test engineers and internal customers. To be able to form more in-depth understanding of the purchasing process, other stakeholders such as Quality Engineering and Supplier Quality are taken into account. The purchasing process is approached through the current state analysis. Best practice was found through literature search and benchmarking, which was done against two other companies that have established their equipment purchasing processes.

The current challenges were strongly related to the lack of the process description that would be tailored to the R&D organisation, partly because of the transition process the case company is going through. Therefore, by producing a process description and a workflow accompanied with list of roles and responsibilities of each process step, this study helps to identify the factors of the equipment purchasing process.

The visualised conceptual framework helps outlining the purchasing process and the final purchasing concept can be used as a job aid when new test equipment needs to be purchased.