GAH Alberts has relaunched its supplier portal[i]. The aim was to create a stronger link with strategic scheduling management. Today, GAH Alberts can automatically inform suppliers of its own requirements and convert order proposals from the scheduling management system into orders that are coordinated with the suppliers via the portal.<\/strong><\/p>\n The main task of supplier portals is to minimize the administrative effort involved in ordering through digitalization and automated data exchange. Orders no longer have to be printed out and faxed and order confirmations no longer have to be re-entered into the ERP system. Today, it is much more common to transmit orders from the ERP systems to a portal and coordinate them with the suppliers from there using digital documents. The result is a standardized process that is transparent and program-supported and therefore automatically complies with all legal requirements – such as the automatic archiving of the generated receipts. In addition, no further manual input is usually required, so that typing errors and the associated misunderstandings and incorrect deliveries can be avoided. Today, however, modern supplier portals have to meet significantly more requirements than simply being the interface for digital order processing.<\/p>\n In addition to comprehensive support for the management of order processes by e-mail in the event of orders not being processed or order confirmations differing in terms of quantity, price or delivery date, GAH Alberts also wanted to be able to inform its approximately 60 A-suppliers, with whom the company processes around 80% of its order volume, about its own future requirements. The advantage: the supplier can also adapt its planning and plan its own orders and production orders in advance – completely transparently for both partners, but without binding orders.<\/p>\n However, such a function is only possible if the portal also has a functioning interface to the corresponding demand planning tools, but without revealing too many internal company details. Today, GAH can activate this function, which should not be available for all suppliers, extremely flexibly by ticking a box in the planning tool, whereby only approved sales forecasts are visible, so that strategic decisions and negotiating leeway in purchasing remain intact.<\/p>\n The greater integration of suppliers and the partnership-based exchange of information should ultimately lead to an increase in everyone’s readiness to deliver. Since the introduction of the new portal, suppliers have shown great interest in accessing the requirement plans in the supplier portal, because it offers them help with pre-planning for their own production and therefore also more security. From GAH Alberts’ point of view, this is also an advantage, as it makes communication with suppliers more reliable, which also increases the company’s own readiness to deliver.<\/p>\n In order to integrate elements of strategic scheduling management into the supplier portal, GAH Alberts now has an integrated data exchange between the scheduling management system, the supplier portal and the ERP system. GAH Alberts likes the fact that you can configure the portal to suit your own requirements. This means that new vendors can be created themselves, which in the previous system was associated with the costly purchase of a new license. Another advantage of the new scheduling management system is the additional integrated inquiry and bidding function for suppliers. This also did not exist in the old system. It can be used to invite tenders for specific product groups, pre-qualify tenders and award them to the best bidder. In addition, there is now also a confirmation message on shipment, which is of crucial importance for shipping notifications for supply chains from the Far East.<\/p>\n![\"\"Our](\"https:\/\/www.ak-online.de\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Print_Jose_Garcia_Portrait.jpg\")
<\/a>More than just a tool for electronic data exchange<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Forecasts for strategic planning can be integrated<\/h3>\n
Focus on increasing delivery readiness<\/h3>\n
Numerous additional functions integrated<\/h3>\n
Increased acceptance of the portal<\/h3>\n