As summer draws to a close and we look forward to fall outages, the USA Supply Chain Team continues with a full slate of activities and initiatives. In addition to wrapping up our Maintenance and Mods contracting initiative the SCM Team will be actively moving forward with the Engineer of Choice (EOC) initiative as well as a number of new agreements and renewals that will provide savings and serve the members well into 2020 and beyond.
USA has been utilizing the Ethany material receipt deficiency tracking system (eSPM) for several years and beginning in July we implemented a new quarterly tracking and reporting process with the USA material supplier-partners and plant personnel. This effort is being headed up by Brad Vickery, USA Material Cost Reduction (MCR) Project Manager. At the very least, receipt discrepancies consume valuable plant resources, and worst case, they can impact operability, so this focus is a natural fit for Brad’s mission and he’s doing a great job with it.
Receipt discrepancies include such things such as incorrect part numbers, broken/damaged parts, and documentation problems. eSPM data can be accessed by subscribing member personnel during the sourcing process to see how the suppliers compare in this area of performance. The system also provides supplier details at a regional branch level so specific issues that impact one plant and not another can be addressed and corrected. Brad reviews the data for trends on a quarterly basis and initiates corrective action as needed. “The goal for this effort is to have all suppliers and plant staff collaborate to correct issues so all USA suppliers are in the “green band” with a deficiency rating of 2% or less,” Brad explained.
As the Fall progresses, we’ll also be working to support member outages and prepare for the 2020 Winter Conference. This will be our 17th annual conference and we’ll be returning to perhaps our most popular venue ever, the Opal Sands in Clearwater Beach, FL on Jan 28-30. The Winter Conference is open to USA Supplier-Partners and Members only and is centered on providing as much interaction and networking as possible from a variety of different approaches. It’s all about learning and enhancing the relationships and business between our members and supplier partners. Check it out at https://www.usainc.org/winter-conference/. We hope you’ll join us!
