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SUPPLY CHAIN

Loram Supply Chain’s Transformational Journey
By Jeff Craig, Director Sourcing & Procurement

How does a company start? Usually, someone has an idea for a great product to sell. They figure out a way to
make that product, then create a sales team and off they go. Whether a car, paper towels or the newest app, most
companies started this way.
But what next? As they grow, a company will hire finance people to keep books, then HR to manage the staff, then
legal. Now they are off and running. Then competition hits and now the company needs to make their items bet-
ter, at the right cost and get them to the customer faster. This is when supply chain comes into play.
Once engrained, supply chain becomes the critical point to getting raw materials or components here so we can
make what we need when we need it, to ensure quality parts and to manage transportation and warehousing.

At Loram we have 4 different functions within the department.
• Strategic Sourcing – Looks to identify synergies across the organization for improved total cost of
ownership, quality, and secure performance-based contracting. This works like buying a car. If you
want to purchase one car, you may be able to negotiate $1,000 or $2,000 off the sticker price. But if
we were to negotiate cars for everyone at Loram, we could save much more than that! The car manu-
facture sells more cars, and we get many thousands in discount by using our new buying power.
• Procurement Operations – Our suppliers need to get us quality products on time. But our suppliers
also are a wealth of information to help us to innovate and make our products better. Like our ac-
count representatives on the Sales side, our Procurement team is the lead partner with our key suppli-
ers. Procurement helps to ensure we get all the products we need, at lower costs, with improved de-
livery, meeting all requirements, and working together with our suppliers to stay leading edge on inno-
vation and products we offer.
• Buy to Pay (B2P) – Our buy to pay team is critical to buying items so they are here when we need
them. They create purchase orders, ensure our suppliers have all the information they need, process
order confirmations, and collaborate with process stakeholders such as receiving and accounts payable
to solve issues. They manage this process for thousands of items every week!
• Materials & Distribution – They process and move materials from the supplier to the customer. This
also includes order management, transportation, warehousing, and material planning. So, they ensure
products get where they need to be on time, and that our warehouse tracks our raw materials and
finished goods and gets them to the right places to be manufactured.

Volume 2 : Issue 5 Page 12