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Can anyone be a planner/buyer?

No, not just anyone can be a planner/buyer, nw should a company want just anyone filling those positions. As we said earlier, this position is pivotal in determining the company's investment and cash flow. In most companies today, the majority of their costs are represented by direct materials or overhead. We need competent professionals to deal with the planning and buying issues each day. Planner/ buyer candidates usually display several characteristics:

A. They are decision m akers. The position itself is config­ured for people to make decisions, so putting someone into the position who cannot do so defeats the purpose.

B. They are good decision makers. The position requires the incumbent to deal with multiple priorities that are changing constantly. The planner/buyer is required to balance his decisions in the best overall interest of the company.

C. They are energetic self-starters. If your organization has a good-old-boy, or girl, who comes to work every day and basically does what is expected of them, leave them alone to do that. To fill the planner/buyer posi­tions find someone who consistently moves beyond the scope of their job. To solve today's problems, we need people with creative minds and the desire to champion change. The planner/buyers will probably be some of the best people in the organization.

Planner/buyer training and education

Planner/buyers require extensive amounts of training and education. If a company is not committed to spending the money required then the planner/buyers are not going to be as effective as they could be. How much education is enough? Well, that will vary company-to-company, but it would not be unusual to have a candidate spend about 140 hours in formal education. There is an important differen­tiation between education and training. Training is me­chanical, such as, how to complete a purchase order, or how to release a shop order. Education is, for example, how to manage inventory or how to analyze and balance a shop load. Even after all of the education and training, planner/ buyers take time to develop. Typically it takes 18 to 24 months for a planner/buyer to mature.

How do the people benefit from the planner/buyer experience?

Both the individual and the company benefit from the planner/buyer experience. The company's benefits have been discussed at length, now let's look at the individual. The planner/buyer has to interface with and be knowledge­able of almost all aspects of the business enterprise. The incumbent must understand the cause and effect relation­ship between their position and manufacturing, finance, accounting, master scheduling, quality and suppliers, just to name a few. In essence, the planner/buyers become mini materials managers for their areas. The individuals be­come well rounded in most of the aspects of the business. They become good decision makers that are capable of weighing multiple considerations, in a pressure filled environment. The planner/buyers are very valuable to the company as well as to themselves.

Which Companies Should Adopt the Planner/Buyer Concept?

Almost anyone can use the planner/buyer concept to their advantage. The question becomes should a company utilize the concept, and to what extent ? The answer is in whether or not one is happy with the administrative cycle time, and costs of their company. If not, the planner/buyer is a valid concept to be used to improve the situation.

After a decision is made to adopt the planner/buyer con­cept, the question of extent has to be addressed. Company G had individual product lines that ran on dedicated assembly lines. Assigning planner/buyers by product line was a natural. Other companies are different, and planner/ buyers may be best allocated by commodity, or resource, or some other type of control group

Summary

The planner/buyer position is a valid approach to reducing administrative cycle time and lowering indirect labor costs. Most companies will have to re-think the way they do business to make the concept work for them, but the benefits are great. Not everyone can be a planner/buyer. The position requires energetic people who are willing to learn, grow and make decisions. The individuals filling the planner/buyer positions learn a lot about a manufacturing business thereby increasing their personal worth and their worth to their company.