How do you currently exchange purchasing documents with your suppliers?

1. Include attachments with a PO sent/received via the supplier collaboration portal. Attachments may include specifications, check lists, diagrams, etc. These attachments may be in the form of a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, JPG, BMP, VSD, etc.

2. Include add-on information with a PO sent through the supplier collaboration portal (e.g. FOB information). This feature is of particular importance with material purchases.

3. Vendor to confirm/acknowledge a PO through a supplier collaboration portal, resulting in a subsequent update to the ERP PO to indicate it was confirmed by the supplier.

4. Vendor to suggest changes to a PO through a supplier collaboration portal. Critical changes include Price, Quantity and Delivery date, Terms and Conditions.

5. Vendor to easily review the orders sent to them and the Purchase Order processing status (e.g. Changes accepted, under review, cancellation, etc.)

6. Easily review the orders being managed via the supplier collaboration portal, and the Purchase Order processing status (e.g. Changes accepted, under review, cancellation, etc.).

7. Accept PO changes proposed by the Supplier, resulting in the creation of an ERP PO Change Order to facilitate PO updating.

8. Reject PO changes proposed by the Supplier.

9. Buyer and the supplier to negotiate PO changes via the supplier collaboration portal until such time as the buyer accepts (most important) or rejects them.

10. Audit trail of accepted and rejected changes be maintained to provide tracking of all communications between Buyer and the Supplier. It is also desirable for proposed changes to be tracked

Are there features missing on this list that you would include? Please feel free to comment and provide your suggestions

How to add efficiency to the procurement department without requiring your suppliers to implement EDI

• Pricing, delivery and any other negotiation are easy to work within the B2B Connex supplier portal
• Automatic expediting of a purchase order based on business rules defined per supplier, per plant location
• Revision control over B2B documents exchanged
• Viewable worklists to highlight areas of priorities
• One document source to work with, no knowledge of different standards required
• Images of products and engineering drawings and msds are available for the supplier to confirm product specifications which in turn improves supplier quality
• B2B Connex requires no middle service like a VAN (value added network) to exchange business documents
• Invoice matching is a reduced or totally eliminated by using B2B Connex
• Works easily with smaller trading partners. Typically trading partners needs infrastructure to handle EDI communications

What are your experiences with implementing EDI with smaller trading partners?

Thanks to the PurchasingB2B magazine for providing a recent article called “Bye-bye, busy work!”. The article provides details behind one of our customers experiences with the B2B Connex vendor portal.

You can find the article on the B2B Connex vendor portal here http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/purchasingb2b/features/strategicsourcing/article.jsp?content=20100603_094906_13976

During the writing of this article, B2B Connex will soon provide new functionality to help extend and support your supplier quality initiatives including the 8D process.

What to look for when researching a supplier portal solution:
1. Remove common barriers of communication like lost emails/phone calls
2. Provide robust reporting and supplier metrics
3. Allow all suppliers to collaborate in a easy to use interface without the need to update supplier infrastructure
4. Provide the ability to negotiate on delivery dates, and price if required
5. Remove processes that don’t add value, such as trading purchase orders

Have you reviewed your purchasing and quality processes? What parts of the process would you like automated?