Abstract
According to the industry benchmarks, Bob's Farm Stores is spending more than it needs to on its purchasing process. We believe that they could save a total of $1,065,462 by implementing three strategies, namely 1) implementing a mid-tier ERP system, 2) consolidating the number of annual purchase orders through the use of blanket purchase orders, and 3) standardizing their vendor authorization process and increasing the number of authorized vendors. Our company deals with 650 different suppliers, having each hundreds to thousands of SKU's. The current manual ordering process is overwhelmed by the complexity of the supplier base which has resulted in severely inaccurate forecasts, redundant process and data entry, and increased lead time. With the implementation of a fairly off-the-shelf, mid-tier ERP system we believe that we can 1) Increase forecast accuracy, 2) Eliminate redundant processes, 3) Decrease the amount of labor required to generate and process each PO, and 4) Decrease the lead time by 4 days. Total net expected savings are $624,462.
