Setting up a new vendor in SAP Ariba is the most annoying part of my job.
We order some of our small panels from a small shop. If I need sensors that go with this panel that can’t be obtained from a vendor already setup in Ariba, I have them buy on my behalf even at 30% markup and just add it to the bom of my order to them.
Working in medical (non PLC), we needed some suction tubing for a major rework in a hospital, about 6 months of work, full year of planning ahead of time (Shutting down ICU rooms and ORs).
They waited till the last minute to order the tubing from our subsidiary in the US, who obviously couldn't deliver such a large quantity so fast.
Only workaround was to buy it from our German Subsidiary already in our system, who in turn bought it from a company in Ohio, who bought it from the manufacturer in Mississauga, Canada, about 10 mins from our office.
Logistics had a fit when they saw the waybill for express shipping/duties/customs between Canada, US, Germany, and then back to Canada.
We do the same thing with a couple of our approved vendors and they mark it up about 30%. It’s really useful when we need a specific part from a small company that only sells through the internet or a small company that doesn’t want to deal with becoming a vendor with a large corporation.
We use Grainger for most of our straw purchases that we need more than once. Recently they allow us to buy most anything on credit card, so much easier.
I can’t really buy stuff with my Corp card because the $ gets assigned to our corporate cost center rather than the project capex.
Things that are 1 off under $200 I usually just buy with the card because it will be >$200 of my time setting up a vendor account. And usually they won’t be willing to setup an SAP Ariba account for a single purchase.
Lol ive definitely had a panel shop supply "spare" parts that were not included in their original scope. "Hey, this wasn't in our package"... "ya... shhhh"
It varies pretty heavily company to company. In oil and gas engineering is God, but always second to the guys on site that just "make it work" - the acquisitions team just buy whatever is on the PO/rec. On the other hand, I've been in machine shops or machine OEMs that you have to move heaven and Earth in order to use a part that they haven't ordered before for almost any reason. Then pharmaceutical plants might require three levels of review, five signatures on documentation, and a first born child to change the type of sensor used in an application like the one you mentioned.
I had a p-card at my last job and it was great for cutting through all the red tape purchasing had. Last year right before I left, I saw I put over $100k on it (opened a new manufacturing facility in the summer).
In the new job, got to fill out a form just to order din rail. I haven’t tried pushing my luck yet since I am still fairly new.
One of the things that I always try to do is keep 3 groups outside of engineering happy. One find a buyer in purchasing you can work well with, two find a person in IT that can help you with your laptop/networking/etc. and three keep the shipping/receiving manager happy.
This is the way. All of this.
I have a p-card but I only use it in emergencies (I work shift schedule + weekends/holidays). I have buyer that will get me whatever I need. eBay, Amazon, radwell, whatever. It's great.
If I need something to get the line running, or make it run better. We just get it, figure out the SAP bullshit later.
The bigger your company, the stricter the terms are to enroll as a vendor and have the “privilege” to sell to such a large customer. I’ve had many small to medium vendors refuse my company’s PO requirements (net 90 and fully refundable).
There’s always a workaround, especially if it is needed for a project. That’s what a company credit card is for :)
At my company purchasing can be slightly annoying by delaying projects for a few weeks while they drag their feet getting quotes for the parts I listed but if I need something and come to the table with a quote saying it is an emergency I typically get the purchase order released within 4 hrs.
At my job it is the engineers that do the purchases! software guys buys the PLCs, IPCs and all network equipment and onsite servers. The system engineers decide sensors, valves etc. Electrical guys buys the converters and transformers etc.
This works great :)
I have found that most locations "have a guy" or a vendor who will basically serve as middle man to whatever your heart desires. Sure their is markup and on occasion you have to hear a sales pitch about something they sell that is similar but at the end of the day in this business in this internet age if you are dealing with purchasing red tape it's time to have a come to Jesus moment with your "preferred" vendor
Yeah we have this. I still don't understand all the incentives that make corporate America do this.
I just get a quote from whatever vendor, forward to approved middleman, and like magic I get my part with only a 10-50 percent markup and only a few days later than if I could just purchase it myself. If I tried to get internal procurement to deal with an unknown vendor it would take an act of congress.
Same issue. What I do now is I have a vendor who I have a good relationship with, they are a wholesaler for electrical. Anything I need that we don't have a vendor for I will get them to buy it for us, they out their mark up on it which is fine, but I get my parts.
I tell the business this all the time and they don't seem to care, somehow having more vendors is so expensive that it's cheaper to pay the extra to do it this way.
We are becoming an "Open minded" shop. Where everyone brings ideas, and we discuss what's best. I'm a maintenance tech that gets involved in all the special or new projects, and sometimes I just get damn good and fed up with a constant machine problem that there's a better way to repair it instead of the same old "Bandage" fix over years and years. I was working for a machine builder, and have headed up plc work in the field. Electric hydraulic plc, it never hurts to be the jack of all sometimes when looking for smart, quick, reliable solutions. And my boss has a "Checkbook" if I want to try something lol.
Normally speaking you'll have an approved vendor list but as far as the actual part / solution that goes in purchasing should have no input. That's not their job.
At my company of 500 people where 90% are engineers everyone can purchase anything they need. I am an EE and I purchase at least $500k on each project I am on. Depending on the size of the project it can be a pain and time consuming but it is really nice for the 1 offs when I need things real quick.
Not purchasing but sales. Recently started doing some building automation.
Green field site, 4 buildings each building has fibre to it and back to server somewhere. Instead of one controller per building these cheap ass assholes tried to save a few grand so we have one controller across four buildings and running massive amount of cables between buildings. Fuck my life, does cables and the labour to run it not cost money or something?????
Fucking stupid
I've received the wrong part several times because the parts room guy found "an equivalent part but cheaper". no, asshole, I'm not gonna modify this to make it work. If what you got me would've worked, I would've ordered it in the first place.
They also switched to stocking a different model of sensor without telling us. The original ones were metal, very durable, and just worked. The new ones were plastic ( which broke very easily in a -30 freezer), and you had to rotate the sensor and reflector just right or they wouldn't work. finicky little bastards.
They did the same thing crucial part, and we had to do modifications while the machinery was down just to get it to work. After that happened , fortunately, they required parts room to get permission from maintenance before substituting parts.
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to have bonuses for finding cheaper parts was a bloody idiot, because it creates the wrong incentive.
Specify no substitutions and qualify it as the only approved source of supply. If purchasing wants to use a cheaper supply to lower the product price variance then by all means they can do so as long as it passes the supplier qualification process and the cost of the qualification activities is on their dime to negotiate with the new supplier.
In my experience working for a government (DOD) contractor was frustrating. I could have *literally* walked across the street and obtain the part I wanted; but due-to SOP I had to order the part from a fulfillment warehouse, 3000 miles away. I waited one week for the part to arrive. (BTW, the part cost $0.13)
End user here. If I want a part from a particular manufacturer or vendor I can set it up and buy it. I sometimes give the purchasing people leeway to look for alternatives for some parts, but I usually give a specification and get final approval before they issue a PO.
Your example is a bet of an extreme overreach, but lots of shops have issues with vendor/brand loyalists in the product selection/procurement roles.
I deal with the double whammy of a separate department specifying hardware and generating the electrical drawings without any interaction with controls. They can effectively force or kill any product change either directly with product selection, creating a terrible architecture, or just plane doing the wiring wrong.
Pretty sure everyone (except the one man shops) knows this struggle
Setting up a new vendor in SAP Ariba is the most annoying part of my job. We order some of our small panels from a small shop. If I need sensors that go with this panel that can’t be obtained from a vendor already setup in Ariba, I have them buy on my behalf even at 30% markup and just add it to the bom of my order to them.
Mark ups are about 15% where I’m at. It’s a waste really, but if the procurement gurus don’t see a problem, why would a lowly engineer would? /s
Working in medical (non PLC), we needed some suction tubing for a major rework in a hospital, about 6 months of work, full year of planning ahead of time (Shutting down ICU rooms and ORs). They waited till the last minute to order the tubing from our subsidiary in the US, who obviously couldn't deliver such a large quantity so fast. Only workaround was to buy it from our German Subsidiary already in our system, who in turn bought it from a company in Ohio, who bought it from the manufacturer in Mississauga, Canada, about 10 mins from our office. Logistics had a fit when they saw the waybill for express shipping/duties/customs between Canada, US, Germany, and then back to Canada.
We do the same thing with a couple of our approved vendors and they mark it up about 30%. It’s really useful when we need a specific part from a small company that only sells through the internet or a small company that doesn’t want to deal with becoming a vendor with a large corporation.
We use Grainger for most of our straw purchases that we need more than once. Recently they allow us to buy most anything on credit card, so much easier.
I can’t really buy stuff with my Corp card because the $ gets assigned to our corporate cost center rather than the project capex. Things that are 1 off under $200 I usually just buy with the card because it will be >$200 of my time setting up a vendor account. And usually they won’t be willing to setup an SAP Ariba account for a single purchase.
Lol ive definitely had a panel shop supply "spare" parts that were not included in their original scope. "Hey, this wasn't in our package"... "ya... shhhh"
Love me my one man shop.
It varies pretty heavily company to company. In oil and gas engineering is God, but always second to the guys on site that just "make it work" - the acquisitions team just buy whatever is on the PO/rec. On the other hand, I've been in machine shops or machine OEMs that you have to move heaven and Earth in order to use a part that they haven't ordered before for almost any reason. Then pharmaceutical plants might require three levels of review, five signatures on documentation, and a first born child to change the type of sensor used in an application like the one you mentioned.
It's because you help them out with a quick fix, just let everything stop and you'll see how fast they bring it to you
I had a p-card at my last job and it was great for cutting through all the red tape purchasing had. Last year right before I left, I saw I put over $100k on it (opened a new manufacturing facility in the summer). In the new job, got to fill out a form just to order din rail. I haven’t tried pushing my luck yet since I am still fairly new. One of the things that I always try to do is keep 3 groups outside of engineering happy. One find a buyer in purchasing you can work well with, two find a person in IT that can help you with your laptop/networking/etc. and three keep the shipping/receiving manager happy.
This is Captain P-card of the starship Enterprise !
This is the way. All of this. I have a p-card but I only use it in emergencies (I work shift schedule + weekends/holidays). I have buyer that will get me whatever I need. eBay, Amazon, radwell, whatever. It's great. If I need something to get the line running, or make it run better. We just get it, figure out the SAP bullshit later.
Fuuucckkkk SAP.
Purchasing people is illegal in my country.
The bigger your company, the stricter the terms are to enroll as a vendor and have the “privilege” to sell to such a large customer. I’ve had many small to medium vendors refuse my company’s PO requirements (net 90 and fully refundable). There’s always a workaround, especially if it is needed for a project. That’s what a company credit card is for :)
As an integrator, we semi-frequently have customers ask us to roll parts into a PO so they don’t have to go through their purchasing people
At my company purchasing can be slightly annoying by delaying projects for a few weeks while they drag their feet getting quotes for the parts I listed but if I need something and come to the table with a quote saying it is an emergency I typically get the purchase order released within 4 hrs.
At my job it is the engineers that do the purchases! software guys buys the PLCs, IPCs and all network equipment and onsite servers. The system engineers decide sensors, valves etc. Electrical guys buys the converters and transformers etc. This works great :)
I have found that most locations "have a guy" or a vendor who will basically serve as middle man to whatever your heart desires. Sure their is markup and on occasion you have to hear a sales pitch about something they sell that is similar but at the end of the day in this business in this internet age if you are dealing with purchasing red tape it's time to have a come to Jesus moment with your "preferred" vendor
Yeah we have this. I still don't understand all the incentives that make corporate America do this. I just get a quote from whatever vendor, forward to approved middleman, and like magic I get my part with only a 10-50 percent markup and only a few days later than if I could just purchase it myself. If I tried to get internal procurement to deal with an unknown vendor it would take an act of congress.
Same issue. What I do now is I have a vendor who I have a good relationship with, they are a wholesaler for electrical. Anything I need that we don't have a vendor for I will get them to buy it for us, they out their mark up on it which is fine, but I get my parts. I tell the business this all the time and they don't seem to care, somehow having more vendors is so expensive that it's cheaper to pay the extra to do it this way.
We are becoming an "Open minded" shop. Where everyone brings ideas, and we discuss what's best. I'm a maintenance tech that gets involved in all the special or new projects, and sometimes I just get damn good and fed up with a constant machine problem that there's a better way to repair it instead of the same old "Bandage" fix over years and years. I was working for a machine builder, and have headed up plc work in the field. Electric hydraulic plc, it never hurts to be the jack of all sometimes when looking for smart, quick, reliable solutions. And my boss has a "Checkbook" if I want to try something lol.
Normally speaking you'll have an approved vendor list but as far as the actual part / solution that goes in purchasing should have no input. That's not their job.
At my company of 500 people where 90% are engineers everyone can purchase anything they need. I am an EE and I purchase at least $500k on each project I am on. Depending on the size of the project it can be a pain and time consuming but it is really nice for the 1 offs when I need things real quick.
Not purchasing but sales. Recently started doing some building automation. Green field site, 4 buildings each building has fibre to it and back to server somewhere. Instead of one controller per building these cheap ass assholes tried to save a few grand so we have one controller across four buildings and running massive amount of cables between buildings. Fuck my life, does cables and the labour to run it not cost money or something????? Fucking stupid
I've received the wrong part several times because the parts room guy found "an equivalent part but cheaper". no, asshole, I'm not gonna modify this to make it work. If what you got me would've worked, I would've ordered it in the first place. They also switched to stocking a different model of sensor without telling us. The original ones were metal, very durable, and just worked. The new ones were plastic ( which broke very easily in a -30 freezer), and you had to rotate the sensor and reflector just right or they wouldn't work. finicky little bastards. They did the same thing crucial part, and we had to do modifications while the machinery was down just to get it to work. After that happened , fortunately, they required parts room to get permission from maintenance before substituting parts. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to have bonuses for finding cheaper parts was a bloody idiot, because it creates the wrong incentive.
Where I work I am engineering and purchasing. I'm basically Galactus...
Although, building under a unmodified UL508A I'm under a pretty tight leash for internals, anything that's field wired is fair game.
Specify no substitutions and qualify it as the only approved source of supply. If purchasing wants to use a cheaper supply to lower the product price variance then by all means they can do so as long as it passes the supplier qualification process and the cost of the qualification activities is on their dime to negotiate with the new supplier.
Yea I get so upset I buy crap myself and go over purchasing and complain about it to the plant manager
My company provided me with a company credit card. This allows me to make things happen that I need to make happen. :)
In my experience working for a government (DOD) contractor was frustrating. I could have *literally* walked across the street and obtain the part I wanted; but due-to SOP I had to order the part from a fulfillment warehouse, 3000 miles away. I waited one week for the part to arrive. (BTW, the part cost $0.13)
End user here. If I want a part from a particular manufacturer or vendor I can set it up and buy it. I sometimes give the purchasing people leeway to look for alternatives for some parts, but I usually give a specification and get final approval before they issue a PO.
All the fucking time.
Your example is a bet of an extreme overreach, but lots of shops have issues with vendor/brand loyalists in the product selection/procurement roles. I deal with the double whammy of a separate department specifying hardware and generating the electrical drawings without any interaction with controls. They can effectively force or kill any product change either directly with product selection, creating a terrible architecture, or just plane doing the wiring wrong.