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Don’t Start from Zero: When and How to Use Procurement Wrap Agreements
After a hard-fought battle, you finally have contract terms and conditions with a supplier. Awesome! But now you want to use that same supplier for a different material or different scope of work, and the idea of renegotiating that contract again is daunting. It’s...
Build Value in Supply Chain by Thinking Like an Engineer
Like most supply chain/procurement professionals, I definitely didn’t start here. I was going to be an engineer, climbing the expected chain from Design Engineer to Project Engineer to Engineering Manager and then maybe VP of Engineering. It was going to be organized,...
Lump Sum vs. Unit Price: Procurement Lessons from 30,000 Feet
On a call with a client today, they asked me how a “lump sum” bid is different from a “unit price” bid. This led to a larger discussion about risk vs. cost in a supply chain and this client team said to me, “You should write an article about this topic.” So here we...
Lessons Learned from Eight Small Midwest Manufacturing Supply Chains
A few months ago, I had the immense privilege of working with the team at Iowa State University’s Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) to assess the supply chains at eight small Iowa-based manufacturers. The lessons we learned and their common threads...
E-auctions Are A Chainsaw
When I tell people e-auctions are a negotiation tool in the toolbox, they often go straight to “e-auctions are a hammer.” But a hammer doesn’t have flexibility or grace, it can basically do one thing. I say e-auctions are a chainsaw. If that evokes a slightly visceral...
AI, BI, CI and DI: The Progression of Artificial Intelligence
AI is the biggest buzzword of the day. To Joël Collin-Demers’ point, if you can substitute the word “computers” or “technology” for AI in a sentence, it’s probably not true AI but instead is a clever use of technology. While technology is still valuable and...
Tariffs Will Settle At About 10%: An ISM World 2025 Keynote Roundup
To the chorus of a thousand clinking name badges, we sat down last week to the ISMWorld 2025 keynote speaker: Kevin O’Leary. “Mr. Wonderful.” His insights and thoughts over the next hour or so were fascinating, thought-provoking, and edged into thoughtful criticism of...
How to Be an Intern
It’s intern season! I loved being an intern. There was so much to learn about the company, the job, and why (and whether) my major actually mattered. I had a total of four internships in college because I had two while I was finishing up an advanced degree, so I...
A Bucket, a Dipper, and an Agreement: Making Blanket Orders Work for You
I frequently see companies early in their supply chain maturity journey using blanket purchase orders almost like a “light contract.” At first I found this somewhat odd, but for a company with a small supply chain, it makes sense. Blanket orders don’t require nearly...
My publishing journey . . . so far
Today is the day. Publishing day. My book, Transform Procurement: The Value of E-auctions, comes out today. I implemented my first e-auction program basically without guidance, and I’m hoping my book helps give people a quick roadmap so they don’t have to take two...
Supply Chain Maturity: When is Your Organization Ready for E-auctions?
Inevitably when you write a book, there are pieces you find you left out. It’s like DaVinci said - “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Only in this case, a book is never finished, but at some point your publisher says, “It’s done now, leave it!” So as we get down...
Telling Your Story: Charts That Present Your Data to Best Effect
A large part of many corporate jobs is presenting data. Typically presented in chart form, data is intended to help others (especially management) make decisions, plan for the future, and understand the current state. This is especially true in a supply chain team,...
Diversity is a Second Choice
I’ve been hesitant to write this week’s article because it feels scary and vulnerable. In the current U.S. political climate, “diversity” is an incendiary word. But it’s also something that comes up time and again in a supply chain - not just within the people in an...
Avoiding the Race to the Bottom: How Go/No-Go Criteria Save E-auctions
The what-about-ism in e-auctions runs strong, and nowhere does it run stronger than the question “What about if an e-auction becomes a race to the bottom?” In the early 2000s, e-auctions often did become a race to the bottom. There was no Request for Proposal (RFP)...
Harnessing the Pareto Principle: Get Better Results with Less Effort
“The 80/20 rule always applies” is a phrase I’ve lived with so long I don’t even know where I heard it first. But I’ve definitely repeated it - to my teams, to clients, to my poor family who are no longer at all interested (if they ever were). But what is it, why and...
So Your Company Hired a Consultant—Now What?
So you’ve been invited to a meeting with the consultant your company just hired. Ugh. What do they even know? They’re going to come in with their glossy PowerPoints and get everyone riled up, and then they’re going to leave you holding the ball. It doesn’t have to be...
From ABC to XYZ: How to Thoughtfully Manage Your Inventory
Back in January, we talked about tail spend and ways to reduce your spend with the bottom 20% of suppliers. But what if you don’t really know which tail spend items/suppliers to keep and which to get rid of? What else should we think about when classifying our...
What makes a manufacturing supply chain unique?
Several months ago, I published an article on what makes a utility supply chain unique. This article is the same for the manufacturing supply chain - which is a HUGE category with thousands of businesses represented. I’ve been working in and with manufacturers since...
Why Your RFP Might Be Driving Suppliers Away — And How to Fix It
Some months ago on LinkedIn, I saw an account rep run a poll about all the questions he had to answer for a Request for Proposal (RFP), asking his fellow sales team peers about their experiences with long question lists. This struck me because my reaction was: why is...
Should You Sign an Exclusivity Clause? Key Considerations for Buyers
Contract exclusivity clauses are interesting. Suppliers almost always like them, but some companies use them and some don’t. Today let’s talk about what they are, when they are used, ways to structure them, how to negotiate using them, and enforceability. Note: This...
Standardizing Services: The Case for Assigning Item Numbers to Non-Material Purchases
Item numbers can be so powerful. An item number for a part provides a common spec/description, a way of tracking a part across time and different suppliers, and increases the efficiency of a supply chain. Item numbers, also known as part numbers, material numbers,...
Short-Term Tariff Strategies to Keep Procurement Costs in Check
I try to stay off of bandwagons. But (you knew that “but” was coming, didn’t you?) I was at a client’s site this week reviewing category strategies, and of course the subject of trade tariffs came up. Then on a call with a different client this week, someone brought...
Supply Chain Pitfalls that are Holding Your Business Back
I haven’t been in supply chain management as long as some, but I’ve been around long enough to have some observations on common errors supply chain practitioners make. Some are things many professionals can do better (such as continually learning) and some are very...
Why Every Business Needs a Supplier Manual (And How to Create One)
Does your business have a supplier manual? If not, do you feel like you struggle to communicate with your suppliers and hold them accountable? A Supplier Manual is one of those things every company should have, but many don’t. One of my first ever tasks for a client...