Global SCM Introduces Itself

Who Will Shape the Future of PI Group's Supply Chain?

March 11, 2022
© PI

Dear Colleagues,

After many changes within the PI Group, it is also time to present to you the Global Supply Chain Management (Global SCM). The team around Oliver Werner, Global Head of SCM, has grown constantly in recent months and is still looking for further support.

Assigned to the global organization under Florian Geistdoerfer, Chief Operating Officer, the team takes care of positioning the supply chain organization of the PI Group, and in setting up strategic purchasing (Commodity Management).

Our Organizational Chart

© Global SCM

The members of staff responsible for SCM in the respective locations of DPG (Karlsruhe, Eschbach and Rosenheim), Lederhose, Changzhou and Hopkinton, report to the Global Head of SCM on a functional basis. Based on this global structure, we ensure the standardization of our processes, tools and reports. Furthermore, this helps identify synergies across locations and use the purchasing potential as well as possible.

With our newly introduced Global Supplier Quality Management, we will define our customers' and the legislator's requirements on our suppliers, and make sure these are fulfilled.

Global and Local SCM: Interfaces and Boundaries

How is global SCM different to local SCM? Who has which tasks and responsibilities? Where are the boundaries?

In a classic sense, we divide the activities of the purchasing department into "strategic“ and „operative“ fields of activity:

  • Strategic: Commodity Management of Global SCM takes on the strategic responsibility of the respectively assigned "commodities". 

  • Operative: The local SCM or purchasing organizations are responsible for realizing the commodity strategies, and for handling the daily operative tasks from the series and on a project basis. This simply means that the supply of materials and components necessary for our production is guaranteed. 

Global Commodity Management Introduces Itself

© Global SCM

Global Commodity Management lays the foundation for the respective local development and production units to access a functioning supplier network. Therefore, the foundation for PI's international growth has been created. Moreover, the Global Commodity Managers are responsible for the following topics:

  • Identifying and selecting suitable suppliers for the PI Group.
  • Building long-term partnerships to support and guarantee future growth.
  • Negotiating and preparing contracts (e.g., nondisclosure agreements, purchasing framework contracts, quality assurance agreements).
  • Monitoring supplier performance and setting up supplier development programs.
  • Defining and rolling out processes in SCM and Purchasing across locations.

The aim of Commodity Management is to establish a stable supply chain for the PI Group. Particularly recent years' events on global markets, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the blockade of the Suez channel, supply chain problems related to a rapidly growing number of incoming orders, or certain geopolitical conflicts have all showed us the importance of the tasks of global SCM.

The following figure shows the assignment of the Commodity Managers to the respective Commodities.

Best regards

Oliver Werner

Global Head of Supply Chain Management

Written by Laura Früh on March 11, 2022