THE ROLE OF PROCUREMENT FUNCTION IN SPECIFICATION

Dear Members,
A bit I am getting confusing on the upfront topic because Milanzi is talking about early supplier involvement (ESI) in product development especially in technical specifications, other two colleagues talking about Procurement be involved in preparation of specifications to enhance the efficient end results in procurement process. So which one is intended in this platform to be discussed?.

Let me discuss briefly in both matters. Start with the ESI, this is very important in aspect to procurement functions performance to consider. ESI depends on numbers of factors to consider before going to involvement of supplier early, and I don't think if our procurement legislation support on this. ESI helps to minimize risks associated with the product to be designed, it help to transfer technology knowledge upon development stages, it reduces costs associated to that development, it help to enhance the Total quality management towards world class purchasing to reducing defects to zero defects of the product intended, improves quality of product that will be accepted in the market and hence increase the sale of the finished goods from that product and leading an organization making more profit and that to say help an organization to achieve the competitive advantage in the market place. These are some benefits of having ESI in first place.

But when you talk about the Procurement Function involvement in specifications development early in organization, this also depends on the status of the Procurement/Purchasing functions positioning and status in the company business. Not only procurement function to be involved in specifications preparation but it has to be how much procurement function contributes its role towards business profit generation, internal and external customer satisfaction?, how much contribute an organization for sustainable competitive advantages?.

To have this been recognized, the procurement functions has to have the following in place
-Procurement function has to make the leverage purchasing in the business; that means it has to be able to contribute the profits of an organization through efficient and effective procurement,
-Professionalism should be built in the staff of procurement that characterized by prolonged training and development of procurement staff, acting ethically in procurement process.
These two issues is very important to our procurement function to be taking into account, and it has to be supported by the top management as Public Procurement Act recognizes the status of the same function but the question remain, you as a procurement professional, what is your current status in organization regardless of the statutory requirement of PPA 2011, under section 37 and 38?.

To me, involvement of procurement function should become and born in mind of your management how you act in those tow perspective above as discussed. Sometimes procurement professionals we do agree each and every thing brought by user department without any criticism, since you take as technical issue you don't even bother to seek external information to learn so that before inclusion in the final tender document you should be familiar with them.

But again come back to the point of involvement of procurement function in respective to public procurement proceedings, Section 38 (g), state that Procurement Managament Function check and prepare statement of requirements (i.e, specifications, TOR). In directly interpretation here is that procurement function is responsible for preparing specifications or any other requirements though is forwarded from user departments, but its you responsible for final one. Either Section 39 (c, d) of PPA 2011 state for user department to propose and prepare technical specifications and TOR for PMU so still have a chance to you professionally to challenge and advise the user department upon receiving their ambiguity specifications before presented to Tender Board.

I submit!