Portland Bus Company

753 Words4 Pages
Situation • Richard Kaplan is a Buyer of at PBC which is owned by Dawe Motors. At the plant it assembles parts for Dawe’s bus division. He reports directly to David McGregor, Director of Materials. Richard Kaplan’s is in charge of sourcing fabricated Metal Components • This is PBC’s first reverse auction. The reverse auction was an online bidding session. • Laura Lenning a business consultant for Bothe AG (an online bidding event solutions provider) was assigned to work with Richard to manage the online bidding process. • 500 employees worked at the PBC plant. They were approximately 290 components. The system incorporated 10 suppliers in charge of 290 components, which was grouped in 3 fabricated metal parts, and represented $2 million worth of annual spend. • Annual purchase of materials were approximately $250 million, and $60 million was financed through material department Basic Issue • Cost saving opportunities • Suppliers’ selection criteria – Should PBC give consideration to its long time suppliers or source for new suppliers. • Splitting of business – how are the packages to be awarded and to what length should prices by negotiated after the reverse auction • Supplier participation- if PBC doesn’t take into consideration long term relationship it has with some of its selected suppliers they might be weary to take part in the reverse auction Task: 1. What does Richard do? • Four current suppliers are not in this plan due to past unsatisfactory performance • Richard plan to introduce a new supplier, Neelin Mfg. Inc., in the online bidding event 2. What are the alternatives? • Policies for selecting suppliers • The type of auction to be used 3. Policies on extending length of auction 4. Provide pricing bench mark for bidders 5. How would you do a cost analysis for purchasing metal parts? • The last time a thorough review of

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