Materials Management Concepts

Types of Purchasing Systems

The effectiveness of purchasing activities can be enhanced by proper organization and coordination of the activities. There are four types of purchasing system:-

  1. Purchase made as per requirement: No purchase is made in advance. Purchase is done as need arises. Method usually applied for emergency requirement or infrequent goods.
  2. Contract Purchasing: Contract of material is given to an agency. It has an advantage that low price of those materials whose cost fluctuates highly.
  3. Market Purchase: Purchase is made from the market to take advantage of price fluctuations.
  4. Schedule Purchasing: It is a cyclic purchase model. A schedule of purchase is made and it is used for those commodities whose price do not fluctuate.
… Read the rest
Abey Francis

Introduction to Purchase Management

Purchase Management is a function of materials management in a company. Their basic function is procuring the inputs for production function. This function encompasses suppliers in the market external to the organization and several internal to the organization.

Till recently, the purchasing process simply involved placing an order with the supplier who offered the lowest price. Nowadays, increase in competition and market demand and scarcity of resources have forced organizations to reexamine their purchasing activities. The purchasing department functions have expanded considerably and include activities such as verifying the credentials of suppliers, inspecting the quality of the material to be purchased, ensuring the timely delivery of the material, etc.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Meaning of Job Design

The nature of work and its organization has interested managers, economists and social scientists for as long as people have been employed by others to engage in productive activity. Managers have largely been interested in maximizing output from available resources.

Job design can be define as the process of putting together various elements to form a job, bearing in mind organizational and individual worker requirements, as well as considerations of health, safety, and ergonomics. The scientific management approach of Frederick Winslow Taylor viewed job design as purely mechanistic, but the later human relations movement rediscovered the importance of workers’ relationship to their work and stressed the importance of job satisfaction.… Read the rest

Abey Francis