Automating The Supplies Requisitioning Process

The task of creating a process for getting your employees the supplies they need for everyday business or capital projects falls in the purchasing group's hands. The headeaches are: to find a reputable supplier(s), create a catalog, come up with an order entry system and keep the employees "supplied".

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Automating The Supplies Requisitioning Process
The task of creating a process for getting your employees the supplies they need for
everyday business or capital projects falls in the purchasing group's hands. The headeaches
are: to find a reputable supplier(s), create a catalog, come up with an order entry system and
keep the employees "supplied". Any decent supplier has company information, third
party reliability ratings applications and product or brand listings available
on the internet for viewing by the internet audience. Does or can the supplier
offer your company your products within your pricing and order fulfillment requirements?


A potential supplier for your business who has a web site should have contact
infromation (telephone and e-mail) easily available on their web site. View the
presentation; policies regarding shipping, ordering and privacy should be clearly
stated as well as an indication that there is a third party feedback or rating
mechanism that has some information about the supplier's performance or customer
feedback. Some of the better known organizations like the traditional BBB or the
newer Supplier Insight seals offer this type of feedback Your web browser can determine if they
are using encryption and allows you to view the supplier's SSL certificate. This ensures that a
customer's sensitive ordering information is encrypted (preferrably 128 bit encryption). A third
party authenticity seal such as Verisign Authentic Site or GeoTrust (Equifax) can provide
the same results.

You can go further and run a credit check using the familiar DNB or Equifax and
order a credit check report to determine the integrity of an organization's financial
fitness.Perhaps some e-mails followed by phone interviews to state your company's
purchasing objectives and your interest in the supplier's order fulfillment capabilities.
Redundancy is always good so that there is no interruption to your supply replenishment.Lastly
a product listing with some searching capabilities and an order processing system
will show that this supplier is indeed e-commerce enabled and has the ability
to service a general internet audience's procurement needs.

As far as the technicalities, if secure transactions over the internet fits within
your business policy then you should be good to go with the previously mentioned
basic guidelines. You might also consider discussing with your supplier of choice
the possibilities of running the catalog and ordering application on your own
company's internal network (intranet) and transferring the "orders for the day"
at your specified intervals in a file format. Internet or intranet based are reasonable
and secure and are relatively inexpensive as compared to the dedicated terminal
or extranet method which requires dedicated hardware and circuits as well.


Automation and increasing employee efficiency is the goal of every striving business.
Supplies procurement is a process that can easily be automated and removes the redundant
cycle of purchase requisitioning, award and order placement for each and every
single requisition. Security is built into modern internet browsers and so much
more security options can be applied if the application is run on your own intranet.The
key is to find the right suppliers that fit your company's prerequisites.