Logistics

4Upstream and Supply Logistics

4.1. Sheet 23: The Relationship Between the Purchasing and Logistics Department

Key point

The relationship between Purchasing and Logistics is important. Their combined interests give rise to the fluidity and robustness of the supply chain. If it is acknowledged that the Purchasing department has a policy of cost/quality ratio of the purchased product, logistics systematically adds the deadline. It is therefore essential when ordering a product to combine the two departments, so that everyone can find the strongest and most reliable ratio in the overall global performance of the supply chain. This relationship is being increasingly studied in the academic literature [CAL 06, DUR 07, BRU 08].

4.1.1. The buyer’s tasks

The AFNOR 50-128 standard [AFN 90] specified that a buyer is an operator capable of “fostering a creative spirit of competition among suppliers, promoting suppliers’ proposals and their suggestions for reducing costs and/or improving performance and informing other functions of changes affecting the environment”. The purchase concerns different types of products such as raw materials, components, production equipment, packaging, subcontracts, advertising space, etc. A large majority of the purchase concerns the industrial process and thus requires concerted links with the logistician.

The buyer’s tasks can be summed up in five points, ranging from the most strategic to the most operational, and it can be noted that links with ...