Central and decentralised purchasing
Purchasing strategy
The customers of the MAN Nutzfahrzeug Group place extremely high demands on us. Together with our suppliers we bear responsibility for ensuring that our products meet these exacting demands. Our principles here are these:
- Group-wide Global Sourcing projects for ensuring our competitiveness
- Worldwide Forward Sourcing with integration of preferred suppliers and partners at an early stage in the product creation process
- Support for procurement processes using E-Business to minimise the administrative effort
- Reaction times
Our tasks
- Overall leadership in conclusion of master agreements
- Coordination of procurement on the international scene
- Organisation of strategic projects (strategic supplier development)
Types of contract
Group contracts
MAN AG's group-wide requirements are covered in the form of Group master agreements. Here the subgroup with the largest requirement is in charge.
Development and supply agreements
Parts, modules and systems which require a high development input are – unless they are part of the core competence of MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG – purchased under development and supply agreements. With the help of interdisciplinary teams (e.g. from Development, Engineering, Quality Assurance) the time from the emergence of the product idea to its introduction into use with customers is shortened by simultaneous development of the product and the production equipment. This also cuts costs and increases quality. The targets for development parts are:
- transfer of more responsibility for production and delivery to competent suppliers
- realisation of products with optimised costs and benefits using Simultaneous Engineering in order to arrive at more cost-effective procurement of modules and systems.
Master agreements
For current and constantly recurring requirements of production and general material the general conditions (e.g. payment deadline, terms of delivery) and the prices are fixed in master agreements. These master agreements are normally concluded for one year. Agreements for several years make sense only if they are more advantageous than one-year agreements and no changes in design are to be expected. Requirements for series production are ordered automatically by means of delivery call-offs by those plants who are authorised to purchase and have such requirements.
Individual orders
Individual orders are normally placed for one-off requirements and transactions where a master agreement is not practical.