{"id":1999,"date":"2021-10-21T08:49:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T06:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/?p=1999"},"modified":"2021-10-22T09:04:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T07:04:16","slug":"we-continue-to-move-ahead-cautiously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/we-continue-to-move-ahead-cautiously\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe continue to move ahead cautiously\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Uhlmann Purchasing in figures<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the past busi\u00adness year, Uhlmann had approx\u00adi\u00admately 450 suppliers for produc\u00adtion mate\u00adrial (PM) and around 700 for non-produc\u00adtion mate\u00adrial (NPM). The purchasing volume amounted to some 90 million euros for PM and 45 million euros for NPM. From January to September 2021, there were 660,387 BOM require\u00adments to be covered, which is around 18,000 items more than in the same period in 2020. More than 45,000 items are stored in our high-bay ware\u00adhouse with approx\u00adi\u00admately 900 to 1000 goods receipts per day.<\/p>\n

The Supply Chain busi\u00adness unit employs more than 100 people, from plan\u00adning to purchasing, goods receiving, picking, internal trans\u00adport, import\/export and ship\u00adping. \u201cA fantastic team that gives its best each and every day,\u201d says Torsten Pfalz\u00adgraf.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n

pactuell: Mr. Pfalz\u00adgraf, we are hearing from many sources that compo\u00adnents are in short supply. What is the reason for this?<\/h5>\n

Torsten Pfalz\u00adgraf: We are living in a glob\u00adally connected world; may I suggest you check out VUCA World on Google. Coro\u00adn\u00adavirus has made this inter\u00adde\u00adpen\u00addence more than clear. And it all came together: We saw uncon\u00adtrol\u00adlable economic lock\u00addowns all over the world. And suddenly, suppliers were unable to deliver. Add to that the effect of the US-China trade dispute in 2019: all Western coun\u00adtries stopped ordering their elec\u00adtronic chips from China and started sourcing them exclu\u00adsively from TSMC in Taiwan. This caused the market to over\u00adheat due to demand outstrip\u00adping supply. Then came the Suez Canal ship blockage and the COVID-related closure of major ports in China in June and August 2021. On top of that, we saw demand spike in many sectors after the lock\u00addowns.<\/p>\n

Never\u00adthe\u00adless, for us, the coro\u00adn\u00adavirus situ\u00ada\u00adtion also opens up a window of oppor\u00adtu\u00adnity as it will lead to the region\u00adal\u00adiza\u00adtion of procure\u00adment markets in Europe as well. Supply chain laws and consumer-driven demand for sustain\u00adability will support this trend.<\/p>\n

pactuell: Does all this also affect our own assembly oper\u00ada\u00adtions and hence our delivery times?<\/h5>\n

Pfalz\u00adgraf: Yes, unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately it does, and I know how all our colleagues in assembly, the control stations and the SCM BU are strug\u00adgling to get all the parts together we need to build our prod\u00aducts. We have a great team spirit, here, that goes beyond divi\u00adsional bound\u00adaries. This is the only way we can meet this chal\u00adlenge together, even if it does some\u00adtimes push us to our limits.<\/p>\n

pactuell: How is Purchasing dealing with this volatile situ\u00ada\u00adtion?<\/h5>\n

Pfalz\u00adgraf: We already responded to the fore\u00adsee\u00adable impact of coro\u00adn\u00adavirus on the procure\u00adment market back in early spring of 2020, and estab\u00adlished a kind of preven\u00adtion system. In the SCM BU, daily shop floor meet\u00adings to discuss ways of resolving issues in the value creation process have been common prac\u00adtice for years now. Trans\u00adparency and listening closely to suppliers as well as comparing notes with our Excel\u00adlence-United colleagues, purchasing colleagues from networks, or the German Asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion for Supply Chain Manage\u00adment, Procure\u00adment and Logis\u00adtics, are all very impor\u00adtant. It is crucial to constantly provide new momentum \u2013- be it through a supplier day like the one held in July 2021, to which we person\u00adally invited the managers of specific suppliers, thank-you letters to selected suppliers, or an event like the \u201cAfter summer vaca\u00adtion\u201d campaign launched by the strategic buyers during which we visited more than 20 suppliers on site.<\/p>\n

pactuell: That sounds like a very inten\u00adsive supplier manage\u00adment policy \u2026<\/h5>\n

Pfalz\u00adgraf: The part\u00adner\u00adship with our suppliers is very impor\u00adtant to me. This sets us apart from many of our competi\u00adtors. Rather than \u201chammering\u201d our suppliers, we have to look at things on a case-by-case basis. The fact is that for many high-tech compa\u00adnies, we are not their biggest customer. In cases such as these, we also act in concert with our manage\u00adment board. Appealing to a supplier\u2019s sense of social respon\u00adsi\u00adbility at manage\u00adment level is another aspect; because by supplying their prod\u00aducts, they are playing a signif\u00adi\u00adcant role in supporting the vacci\u00adna\u00adtion campaign or the produc\u00adtion of vital medi\u00adcines in devel\u00adoping and emerging coun\u00adtries.<\/p>\n

pactuell: Are there any signs that the situ\u00ada\u00adtion will improve?<\/h5>\n

Pfalz\u00adgraf: According to talks with suppliers, purchasing colleagues from other compa\u00adnies, and the rele\u00advant trade jour\u00adnals, the volatile situ\u00ada\u00adtion looks set to continue until summer of next year. In the news\u00adpa\u00adpers, we read about week-long assembly line stop\u00adpages at Opel or Daimler. Wher\u00adever possible, mate\u00adrials are already being stocked up in advance, like at Axito Germany, for example, where we already started to build up suffi\u00adcient stocks of raw mate\u00adrials back in spring, so we haven\u2019t encoun\u00adtered any raw mate\u00adrial prob\u00adlems to date. We are still moving ahead cautiously and must continue to react flex\u00adibly, keep calm, and work well together to master this crisis. And we will!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The procure\u00adment market is tight. Torsten Pfalz\u00adgraf, Vice Pres\u00adi\u00addent Supply Chain Manage\u00adment (SCM) Uhlmann Pac-Systeme, explains why this is so \u2013 and how we are never\u00adthe\u00adless main\u00adtaining our delivery times. [\u2026]<\/p>\n

Read More\u2026 from \u201cWe continue to move ahead cautiously\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pactuell"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pactuell.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}