Purchasing, Logistics & Supply Chain Management

PURCHASING, LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

1. Tell me about the type of organization you work for. Is it a manufacturer, distributor, warehousing operation, integrated logistics provider or some other type of organization? What are annual revenues? How many employees? How many operating locations?

2. What are your specific responsibilities? Do they include purchasing, inventory control, logistics and/or management of the entire supply chain?

3. What are the commodities that you purchase and your annual purchasing volume?

4. Tell me about your vendors and suppliers. Local, regional, national and/or international? Any new ones you’ve sourced? Why?

5. Have you increased the number of suppliers? Have you downsized and rationalized the number of suppliers?

6. Have you been able to reduce annual purchasing costs? How? By how much (dollar value or percentage)?

7. Describe the demographics of your customer base. Does it include any major corporations with recognizable names? Do you directly or indirectly manage customer relationships? Any growth in number of customers? Any customers you “stole” from the competition?

8. Tell me about your responsibilities for logistics, warehousing and distribution. How many different locations? How many personnel?

9. Have you been able to reduce the operating costs associated with logistics, warehousing and distribution?

10. Are you also responsible for fleet acquisition, allocation and management? What is the size and/or dollar value of the fleet?

11. Are your transportation operations multi-modal? Do you have partners that manage this operation? Are you responsible for budgeting, partner negotiations and supervision?

12. Do you have recruiting, training and/or supervisory experience? For how many? What are their job responsibilities?

13. Do you have direct budgeting responsibilities for specific departments and/or operations? What is the budget? Have you been able to reduce costs? How?

14. Do you have P&L responsibility? For what specific operations? Any measurable revenue, profit and/or market share improvements during your tenure?

15. Have you introduced any systems, processes or operations to improve efficiency, productivity and quality of operations? What did you do and what was the result? Is it quantifiable?

16. Have you developed and/or implemented any new PC technologies? For what applications? Any measurable results in performance?

17. Have you developed and/or implemented any new industrial technologies, such as bar coding, automated materials replenishment, computerized inventory control systems or anything else that has positively impacted your operation? What was the investment in this technology? What were the results?

18. Involved in any start-ups, turnarounds, acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, divestitures or strategic partnerships? What were your responsibilities? How did it impact the size of your organization and your specific operations?

19. What are your planning and long-range business development responsibilities?

20. What other departments within the organization do you interact with? Why?