MANAGING THE SUPPLY CHAIN
A panel of six purchasers discuss their quality, cost and lead time strategies for casting suppliers.
I SHANNON WETZEL, SENIOR EDITOR
n 2012, Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., saw a significant increase in demand at one of its major business segments but logged an even larger decrease in shortages from the supply base. “We did this by working with our supply base on a collaborative
basis, checking bottlenecks, capacity and areas where we were doing things inefficiently,” said Rex Harrison, Oshkosh Corp. global com- modity manager-castings/forging/machining. Oshkosh’s metalcasting suppliers may not be under the same cor- porate umbrella, but the heavy duty equipment maker company views
them as a measure of success, just as sales dollars are. Te performance it receives from suppliers, which includes delivery, price, quality and customer service, signifi- cantly affects its bottom line. How do you define your suppliers’ role in providing value? Oshkosh operates
under four priorities for its business, and with each priority comes specific expec- tations from its suppliers: • Delivery/supply chain • Quality/launch • Program management and new product development • Competitiveness.
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“We want to find somebody in the price range we are looking for so we can maintain our competitiveness in the marketplace. We try to be involved with the foundry when designing the products to make them easier to cast.” —JOHN MCGIVERN, STRANGE ENGINEERING
22 | METAL CASTING DESIGN & PURCHASING | Mar/Apr 2013 “At Oshkosh, we are customer-
centric. Our customer comes first,” Harrison said. “We would like to have the same consideration from our sup- ply base.” Metal Casting Design & Purchasing
spoke with several purchasers from various markets on their sourcing strategies and expectations for their casting suppliers. Cost may be the main driver for end-users, but most of the sourcing specialists in this article discuss how they arrive at lower costs through open partnerships with their casting sources. “What can we do jointly to take the
cost out?” Harrison said. “And notice, I said cost, not price.”
Nexteer Automotive Metalcasting suppliers’ value-
added/value engineering activities serve as major indications of whether they can provide cost benefits to the customer. Chadde Stevens, senior buyer for Nexteer Automotive, Sagi- naw, Mich., named those activities as one of the factors considered when reviewing quotes. Nexteer purchases aluminum, magnesium and zinc cast- ings and typically sends out a request for quote on new jobs to four or five potential suppliers. “We look at cost, quality, delivery
launch and future cost savings initia- tives from material cost improvement
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