There are many areas of responsibilities in the supply chain. For example, a purchasing department might have positions for a secretary, an analyst, an inventory control clerk, buyer(s), contract coordinator, audit, quality control, transportation, logistics, warehouse, shipping, receiving and more. Depending on your company size you might be responsible for some or all of the above job functions!

Purchasing can no longer be stuffed into a dark corner with a phone, fax and internet connection. In other words, it is no longer considered an isolated function. It must work closely with both internal and external clientele. Internal would be your user groups and external would be your suppliers. For the supply chain to be effective and achieve a competitive edge all these pieces must work closely together.

Lets break down all those above job functions into two groupings.

1)    Logistics
–    The incoming movement of goods from the source (the supplier) to your operation
–    Inventory – management of stock levels, warehousing and storage
–    Distribution of stock items to your user group or customers

So transportation, warehouse, shipping, receiving, inventory control all appear to fit category #1

2)    Purchasing
–    Procurement of goods and services
–    Contracts and commercial terms
–    Vendor Management

Purchasing buyers, contract coordination, audit, quality might more fit category #2

Many in purchasing would (more…)