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Introduction

This paper is a case study. The subject matter is the implementation of a concept called "the planner/buyer." The implementation took place at a metal fabrication facility located in the Northeast.

As indicated by its name, the planner/buyer is an organi­zational position within which a person is challenged with the functions of planning and buying for a defined family of items or, perhaps, a complete product. Planning may be very wide or narrow in scope and includes responsibilities such as inventory management, supplier scheduling, shop floor scheduling, or establishment of ordering policies. Buying can also be varying in scope. Some companies may limit the position to supplier scheduling and/or follow-up. Other companies may expand the responsibilities to in­clude sourcing and price negotiating.

The balance of this paper will describe not only how the implementation of the concept took place, but also how the planner/buyer position was used as a tool in the develop­ment of the people involved.

The Setting

The settingis a small metal fabrication plant that produces ASME-coded pressure vessels, to order. (Throughout the balance of this paper this company will be referred to as Company G.) Each end item is different even though there are many similarities in the components and the process. At the time of the implementation the plant was selling about $24 million per year in product. The plant is part of a larger, international corporation that deals in industrial gases and chemicals. The parent sells about $3 billion per year.

The plant's materials management department was orga­nized in a traditional fashion. There was a master scheduler who fed top level demand into a formal MRP system. Planners turned the MRP output into shop floor releases and purchase requisitions. Purchasing turned the requisi­tions into purchase orders and placed the business with the suppliers. Shop Floor Control prioritized work in the plant and provided feedback to the planning functions.
So many times "necessity is the mother of invention." Such was also the case with Company G. Faced with declining sales, the plant sought to cut overhead through a reduction in hourly and salary headcount. Operating the business at reduced staffing meant eliminating as much non-value-added activity as possible. It also highlighted the need for multi-skilled people, rather than specialists. These were all conditions that fueled the need for the planner/buyers, but there was one equally important reason for making the change. The materials management organization was a burden to its customer, Manufacturing.

Manufacturing is the customer of all support organiza­tions; Materials Management in particular was not treat­ing its customer very well with its organization of special­ists. The simple question of when material was going to be available caused manufacturing supervisors many head­aches. Their search for the answer took them to far too many people.

You may be familiar with comments such as:

"Engineering has not released the prints. Go see the Engineer."
"The prints were released last week. Go see the bill of material clerk."
"The bills are complete. Go see if the master scheduler has released the assembly orders."
"Those orders were released. Go see the planner."
"Oh yea, I cut a requisition for those two days ago. Go see Purchasing."
" I know that those parts came in by air freight last night. Go see shop floor control."
"Those parts are here, but I can't release them until I get a manufacturing order. Go see the planner."

It had become painfully clear that Manufacturing needed a single point of contact for their information and that the headcount reduction was creating the need for multi-skilled people. We needed planner/buyers.

Developing the Planner/Buyer Position

The planner/buyer position at Company G was developed around its needs and its environment. As the needs and environments of other companies change, so may the configuration of the planner/buyer. Some of the major considerations in establishing a planner/buyer position are as follows. We will discuss each one:

1. Put speed into the process by eliminating hand-offs.
2. Reduce the points of contact for customers.
3. Improve administrative productivity.
4. Establish clear ownership of responsibility, account­ability.
5. Provide authority to those doing the work.

To be Continued