Blozis Company Case Study

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There is also the issue that suppliers were not given confirmation of orders, suppliers not receiving their invoices, and loss of orders due to a lack of paper trail. All of this could have had a negative impact on Blozis such that suppliers could have started to refuse any future orders and customers could have went to another company for lost orders.

The lack of technical background is hindering the company such that there is a lack of communication with the engineers. Only the expediter has somewhat of an idea of what to purchase. This creates added time and costs as the expediter needs to take time away from his work to determine what needs to be ordered by the supply group. The expediter is not an expert and mistakes can be made if no one from supply can double check his work to see if it is correct. This can also create a ripple effect if the material that is sourced is deemed unusable or inefficient, thus increasing the production time and delivery.

Solutions

To address some of Blozis weaknesses, they would need to start by updating the current purchasing procedures. There is currently no control over the orders, receipts, and payments. Their current procedure is chaotic with no structure and this creates issues when trying to find an order or the fact that requestors also have no visibility when orders have arrived at the plant. This creates delays and affects the suppliers and customers.

A purchasing policy must be adopted. Supply manager and buyers should be the only ones that have access to purchasing the products. With that being said, the supply manager and buyer must receive technical training as well as ongoing training to ensure that they are well versed in the products. In doing so, the expediter can now properly fulfill his job requirements. A side note, another possibility would be to make the expediter a buyer if he were interested. He does have a technical background, however, he would need more technical training to ensure that descriptions are not converted into commercial specifications.

With the implementation of the purchasing policy and technical training, there is no need for the expediter to mingle with the purchase orders. The expediter can now focus on the rush orders and the supervision of the stock room. The time that he spent driving around to pick up supplies can should be eliminated and instead Blozis should hire a company driver. I would stay away from waiting on the supplier’s couriers to deliver the products because they can’t always guarantee that orders will be dropped off at a specific time. With a company driver, Blozis will be able to get their supplies quicker in order to fulfill the rush orders.

With all the above changes, it should alleviate the problems with overdue payments to suppliers, lost orders, and increased time and costs.