Procurement management has become a topic of interest for achieving efficiency and effectiveness in organizations. Meeting the customer demands for the next periods of time with continuous improvements in the offerings and services is the objective of the companies that aspire to stay in the market.
This work was carried out at the Nickel Employing Company, with the aim of designing the supply management system for the fundamental products used in its services. The main results obtained were: the estimation of the demand for products and the purchase budget for 2009, as well as the determination of the strategic products for the company, an analysis and selection of suppliers was carried out and the parameters for the inventory management system of the same.
Keywords in Spanish: Procurement Management, Inventory Management Systems.
design-of-the-company-supply-management-systemINTRODUCTION
In an increasingly dynamic and controversial world governed by new trends in computerization and consumption, where there is evidence of a growth in the weight of services within the economies of the countries, the implementation of management systems, strategies and mechanisms becomes objective. that allow guarantees of positioning on the path from quality to excellence and success.
The commercial sphere is characterized by the search for ways through which levels of sustained competitiveness are achieved, which allow obtaining higher levels of utility, due to the incidence of the economic factor in the development of the different spheres of social life.
The client has become a source of strategic information on the quality of the product and the service, instead of being solely the objective of the advertising campaigns of productive and service companies. The primary objective is no longer to be better than the competition, but to achieve excellence.
Located in a changing environment, Cuba undergoes a whole process of improvement, which requires organizations to change their models, which contrasts with traditional approaches based on the performance of functions conceived in isolation. Lately, the inclusive approach of all the acting groups has been promoted as the most effective way to achieve business objectives. Management by objectives, marketing and logistics are applications of the new approaches that suggest coherent interconnection to arrive at a fully integrated management, with logistics being one of the most recently incorporated into the business field.
In particular, Logistics addresses the study of the set of activities that are developed on material, informational and financial flows from origin to destination with a systemic and integrated vision with the aim of providing internal or external customers of the organization with a service quality at the right time with a minimum of expenses.
In Cuba, the introduction of these new management techniques has been necessary, which implies reducing costs and improving the quality of the final product.
As the objective of the supply function is nothing more than to contribute to the common objectives of the company by acquiring quality merchandise, in the best conditions and at the lowest possible price, it has become a central theme of improvement in multiple companies, since it depends on the satisfaction of the needs, tastes and preferences of customers, which make them loyalty.
This is only achieved by placing emphasis on making purchases efficiently and effectively based on an adequate determination of demand, good negotiation and a deep and careful selection and systematic evaluation of suppliers, which allows the largest economic reserves to be exploited given the multiplier effect that they have through the successive steps of transport, storage and distribution, to the final customer.
Supply management is unquestionably conceived with a Quality approach, defined by the need for customer satisfaction and continuous improvement in service quality.
Today, industrial companies have to achieve a high capacity for adaptability and performance in their supply systems in order to guarantee the necessary inputs for the continuous development that the production process requires. The speed of technology progress, having to deal with countless competitors and the dynamics of competitiveness and change; originated by the new forms of commercialization and existence of extremely knowledgeable and demanding clients; as well as the transformations in the ways of executing business processes and functions, they impose a rhythm only for service leaders.
The nickel industry is one of the main branches of the Cuban economy, and this, due to its importance, demands the increasingly effective use of resources, and the increase in productivity, and this undoubtedly brings with it an increase in the satisfaction of the clients. In the Nickel Employing Company, a market study was carried out that yielded the following results:
- There is a loss of customers due to a lack of materials and supplies for the provision of some services, most of them graphics. On other occasions, customers are not lost, as in the case of the labor force supply service because there is not a sufficient reserve in Another Employer, but the productions of Companies such as René Ramos Latour and Pedro Sotto Alba are affected.
For this reason, this research was carried out, for which the following Problem was formulated: Need to improve the supply management system of the Nickel Employing Company to increase customer satisfaction and optimize costs.
The Logistics Management Process in the entity and the scope of action of supply management in the Nickel Employing Company were defined as the object of the investigation.
The General Objective: To design a supply management system for strategic products in the development of the services of the Employer Nickel Company.
Specific objectives:
- Analysis and adoption of the procedure for supply management. Diagnosis of the Company regarding the impact of supply management on customer satisfaction and the economic situation of the Company. Analysis of the demand for products in inventory and preparation of the Estimated budget for the purchase of these in 2009. Analysis and selection of suppliers. Classification of products in inventory. Inventory Management for each product.
As a hypothesis, the following was defined: the design of a supply management system for the strategic products of the Nickel Employing Company will increase customer satisfaction and optimize costs.
The following theoretical methods were used in the research process: analytical - synthetic, hypothetical - deductive and the historical - logical and empirical methods: direct observation, surveys and interviews, group work techniques and document analysis.
DEVELOPING
For the design of the supply management system in the Nickel Employing Company (EMPLENI), a review of various methodologies was carried out and the use of the proposal by Leordanis Rodríguez Rodríguez in his Diploma Work (2007) was decided, although with some changes for its adaptation to the particular conditions of the company and that appears in summary form in annex 1.
STAGE I. CHARACTERIZATION
Organization Characterization
The Employer Company for Nickel, domiciled at Avenida Puerto S / n, Municipality Moa, Province Holguín; Belonging to the Nickel Business Group of the Ministry of Basic Industry (MINBAS), it was incorporated by Resolution No. 299 dated April 19, 2001, at the time, named Basic Nickel Employing Unit; as of 2007, the name, corporate purpose and mission were again approved as an Employer for Nickel and as a trade name Empleni.
Mission
The Nickel Employing Company promotes the effective supply and performance of the Nickel Industry workforce, with updated techniques and methods and highly professional and competent personnel.
View
We are a reference employer in the country.
Main suppliers
The company's core supplier pool is made up of the following suppliers:
- Prensa Latina SA, Cimex Moa, Copextel Moa and Tecnomática: Reprographics materials and office supplies. Coopextel SA Moa and TRADEX: Materials for signage. Bacou Intersafe and Cimex Moa: Security means. Quimimpex and Cimex Moa: Tires.
STAGE II. DIAGNOSIS
Analysis of the efficiency and effectiveness of the system
This step was carried out through the analysis of the main efficiency indicators of the company (Income, expenses, productivity) in 2007, which showed favorable behavior.
The effectiveness of the system was determined through the measurement of customer satisfaction from the methodology created by DrC Marcia Noda in her doctoral thesis (2004).
The calculation of the Customer Satisfaction Level gave a result of 3.06 and the desired status is 4.00; therefore, there is a fairly significant negative deviation caused fundamentally by non-compliance with the delivery times of the services, due to the lack of opportunity in supplying the inputs necessary to carry them out.
The diagnosis carried out shows that the Company has been efficient, however, it has not been able to be effective as it cannot adequately satisfy the needs of its clients. A deeper analysis allowed us to conclude that there has been a lack of opportunity in sales due to the lack of a supply system capable of responding to the needs of its customers. In this situation, it is necessary to redesign the current Supply System in the organization to ensure products and services according to the needs of customers.
STAGE III. PROJECTION OF THE PROVISIONING SYSTEM
Demand forecasting and purchase budget preparation
Due to the variety of services, it is very difficult to establish the consumption of materials and products based on the demand for services, therefore, it was projected for the remaining months of 2008, starting from the first 4 months and taking into account that The fundamental services have demands with a fairly homogeneous distribution, so the moving average method can be used. Annex 2 shows an example of its use for the fundamental products, as was done for the rest of the products, as From here you can predict the annual demand for each of the products that are part of the inventory.
Preparation of the purchase budget
Taking into account the demands of each of the products, as well as their cost prices and the opinions of the experts of the possible variations that may arise due to market conditions, the purchase budget for the third and fourth quarter of 2008, and a more accurate projection was made for 2009.
Analysis and selection of suppliers.
The first thing is to define the strategic products, that is, the products that must be guaranteed with a view to satisfying customers. To select these products that are the object of study, the ones with the highest consumption will be taken into account, or what is the same, the ones with the highest purchase budgets.
Initially, a review of the warehouse extraction registration documents was carried out, corresponding to the year 2007 where all the product families appear with their amount in the year and the percentage that represents the total costs of sale, as well as the suppliers that they offer it. A reduction of this information was made using the Paretto technique, they are listed in Table 1:
| Product families | cost | % | Accum% |
Providers |
| Vinyl | 48094.71 | 32.04 | 32.04 | Copextel Moa, Copextel Santiago, Tradex Holguín and DSY Habana. |
| Paper | 33140.41 | 22.08 | 54.12 | Prensa Latina Camagüey and Cimex Moa |
| Security means | 25508.50 | 16.99 | 71.12 | Bacou and Cimex Moa |
| PVC | 15331.54 | 10.21 | 81.33 | Copextel Moa, Copextel Santiago and Tradex Holguín. |
| Office supplies | 14942.36 | 9.96 | 91.29 | |
| Binding | 7492.42 | 4.99 | 96.28 | |
| Cartridges and inks | 5563.30 | 3.71 | 99.99 | |
| Photographic material | 22.00 | 0.01 | 100.00 |
Table 1. Selection of product families by the Paretto method
Subsequently, the leading products were determined using Paretto's own technique for the aforementioned product families, by their consumption volumes and coinciding with the opinion of the directors of the UEB that provide services, which are shown in Table 2:
| products | CT | % | %accumulated |
| SECURITY SHOES | 18982.88 | 15.50 | 15.50 |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X11 | 18723.35 | 15.29 | 30.79 |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X13 | 11196.06 | 9.14 | 39.93 |
| PVC 1.22 X 2.44 X 10 MM | 8809.44 | 7.19 | 47.12 |
| REFRACTORY WHITE VINYL | 7598.78 | 6.20 | 53.33 |
| REFLECTIVE VINYL. YELLOW | 7032.21 | 5.74 | 59.07 |
| PVC 1.22X3 05X3MM WHITE | 5842.57 | 4.77 | 63.84 |
| GLOSS LAMINATE 1.37 * 50 MTS | 4676.32 | 3.82 | 67.66 |
| SOFT LURE 4 YEARS WHITE | 3180.12 | 2.60 | 70.25 |
| VINYL MULTIFIX REFLEC.AZUL | 3134.47 | 2.56 | 72.81 |
| POLYESTER OVEROL | 2611.28 | 2.13 | 74.95 |
| VINYL REFLEC. GREEN | 2550.72 | 2.08 | 77.03 |
| VINYL REFLEC. ORANGE | 2510.48 | 2.05 | 79.08 |
| VINYL 4 YEARS 0.61X50M BLACK | 2275.37 | 1.86 | 80.94 |
Table 2.Selection of the leading products by the Paretto method
Once the fundamental or most important products were defined, the determination of their acquisition complexity was made. This was carried out by evaluation of the purchasing specialist, later the products were located in the Kraljic Matrix (see annex 3) in which according to the position occupied by the items to be supplied, this will be the inventory system to be used.
Through this analysis, it was concluded that all the products analyzed due to their importance, in turn, have high acquisition complexity, mainly due to the fact that they are purchased from national suppliers that import the products and in many cases they do not have sufficient availability to supply all of their clients. In addition, most of them are outside the territory, which adds complexity, the rest of the products (those of the security family), are purchased from foreign suppliers, through the Importing Nickel Company, which causes delays in the process.
The next step is the preparation of the matrix for the selection of the suppliers of the strategic products, for which reason a study was carried out with the aim of defining their attractiveness and the bargaining power that the company has over them..
Determining the attractiveness of suppliers
In order to determine the attractiveness of the suppliers, several essential attributes were taken into account (availability, delivery on time, quality of supplies, seriousness and professionalism, communications, price and payment facilities), which were defined through a method of experts.
With this information, the combinex matrix was prepared, and it was decided by experts that those with values greater than or equal to four (4) would be considered highly attractive.
Determination of bargaining power
For this research, a direct interview was conducted with the Director of the UEB of Insurance and Service together with the purchasing specialist. Taking into account the percentage represented by the purchases of EMPLENI of the sales of the suppliers, the number of suppliers that offer the same product and the ability to pay, among other elements, those suppliers with which the company has high power were defined. negotiation.
Location in the Kraljic Matrix and supplier selection strategies
Once the attractiveness of each supplier has been defined and the bargaining power that can be exercised over them, they are located in the Kraljic Matrix (Annex 4).
Subsequently, strategies were defined to be applied with each supplier according to the quadrant where it is located.
Inventory management
In order to establish an inventory management system, a balance must be achieved between its two basic objectives: a reasonable cost in investment and, at the same time, adequate customer satisfaction. Knowing that for star or strategic products it is convenient to use a fixed quantity inventory management system (Q system), we proceed to fulfill the aforementioned objectives. The system will be designed for the months from June to December 2008, covering a period of 7 months.
Demand Definition
The company does not record the daily consumption of each of the products, but the weekly and monthly consumption. In the case of the security means, which do not have a regular weekly consumption, but are mainly used for the labor supply service, the monthly and period demand will be determined, taking into account that the delivery time It is also in months, this also justifies the high standard deviation of its consumption. Annex 5 shows the procedure for two of these products “Safety footwear” and “8.5X11 Photocopier Paper”, as an example to perform the calculations. For the rest of the products it will be done using the Excel spreadsheets to facilitate the work.
In Table 3 the results of products "Safety shoes" and "Paper Photocopier 8.5X11" are shown by way of example:
| products | Demand in the Period | Deviation of Demand |
| SECURITY SHOES | 105 | 15.02 |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X11 | 1237507 | 52388.23 |
Table 3. Demand and deviation of Safety Footwear and Photocopier Paper 8.5X11
Determination of costs and delivery time
The storage cost was determined by a percentage of the unit cost of the product, this percentage according to various authors ranges between 15 and 30%, according to Weston and Schroeder at 25%. Taking both authors into account, it was defined as 25% of the acquisition value of the product. The rest of the data was determined by reviewing documents and interviews. (See table 4)
| products | Unit cost | Storage Cost | Launch Cost | Delivery term |
| SECURITY SHOES | 111.66 | 16,749 | 678.31 | 3 months |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X11 | 0.01 | 0.00114903 | 6.15 | 3 weeks |
Table 4. Costs and delivery time
Definition of the Safety Factor “Z”
As stated in the diagnostic phase, the desired status of the Level of Satisfaction Offered is 4 out of a total of 5, which represents 80%, as this is a direct consequence of the management of supplies to the facility; then the level of satisfaction for inventory management must be the same, however taking this NS so low runs the risk of incurring shortages. Taking into account that there has been a lack of opportunity in sales, NS = 90% is decided for inventory management and the corresponding safety factor is 1.3, according to the table proposed by Schroeder relating both terms.
Calculation of the fundamental parameters that govern the operation of the replenishment system for each product.
In Annex 6 the procedure, two products "Safety Footwear" and "photocopier paper 8.5 × 11" is shown as an example for calculations. For the rest of the products the same procedure was followed and the Excel spreadsheets were used to facilitate the calculations. (See table 5)
| products | Qdec | Ic | Rpp |
| SECURITY SHOES | 53 | twenty | 65 |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X11 | 25,000 | 68 105 | 200 696 |
Table 5. Results of the calculations for the inventory system
Taking into account that some products are not offered by suppliers in the same units of measure as the optimal lot size determined, it will be necessary to convert them for the request. In Table 6 is an example for copier paper 8.5X11.
| products | Qdec | Conversion factor | Qdec |
| PHOTOCOPIER PAPER 8.5X11 | 25000 sheets | 500 sheets / pkg | 50 pcs / lot |
System operation
The products extracted from the warehouse to satisfy the different areas will be controlled, these will be lowered and the stocks will be checked each time an extraction is made, when they reach the reorder point (Example: 65 pairs of safety shoes) a new order will be requested from the supplier equal to Qdec (Example: 53 pairs of safety shoes) and a minimum inventory will be maintained equal to Ic (Example: 20 pairs of safety shoes).
C ONCLUSIONS
- A diagnosis of the Employing Company was made, determining that it has a favorable economic situation and a low level of customer satisfaction (3.06) and its main cause: lack of timely supplies. The demand for supplies in inventory was analyzed, using the The moving averages forecast method and the purchase budget for 2009 were estimated. Suppliers were selected and evaluated, determining that 6 have a low level of attractiveness and only 5 have a high level. It was determined from the application of Paretto The 14 strategic products, among them are different types of vinyl, PVC, paper and security means and for them the Contingency Inventory, the reorder point and the lot size to request for each one were calculated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Acevedo Suárez, José A. Capacity Management in Logistics Systems. ISPJAE Publishing House; Havana, 1996.Arbones Malisani, Eduardo A: Business Logistics. Editorial Boixanu editores; Spain, 1990. Boxwell, R. Benchmarking to Compete with Advantage. Mc Graw Itill Publishing; Spain, 1995, Leyva Rodríguez, Maura. Logistics Management Methodology in Hotel Facilities. Editorial UHo; Holguín, 2002.Portuondo Pichardo, Fernando. Industrial business economics. Editorial Pueblo y Educación; Havana City, 1990. Santos Norton, María Julia. Supply Management Readings. ISPJAE Publishing House; Havana City, 1996 Sierra Proenza, Star. Introduction to Research Methodology. Medical Sciences Publishing House; Havana, 1999.
