Action center of materials management
The basic model of materials management distinguishes between three centers of action (cf. Grün 1994, pp. 455–465):
- First, the users,
- furthermore the materials management itself
- and third, the suppliers.
The consumers and the materials management together form the buyer, which the supplier faces as a provider. There are bonus, monetary and dispositive relationships between the action centers:
- Delivery to the customer dominates in the bonetarian relationship. This happens either directly without intermediate storage or indirectly via the warehouse .
- The monetary relationships are contrary to the bonetarian relationships. The payment flows triggered by the delivery are settled by the customer in the form of cash or book money.
- The dispositive relationships precede the monetary and monetary relationships. They concern all characteristics of demand and delivery and involve all three action centers.
The consumers
The essential material management characteristics of the consumer are the range, the quantity per time unit, the know-how and the costs, taking into account the conditions. The material management decisions of the consumer can be more extensive or more limited. The main determinant of material management decisions results from the production program. Different users also have different material dependencies, which results in a different influence of materials management.
The suppliers
The essential material management characteristic of the suppliers is their delivery range. However, the know-how, the price and the conditions should also be mentioned. The material management decisions of the suppliers are limited by the delivery range, delivery capacity, know-how and the type of production initiation. The endeavor to establish a partnership relationship with customers has recently become more important.
Materials management as a border system
As a border system, the materials management stands between the suppliers and the consumers. Essential scheduling tasks relate to requirements. The market organization and the resulting market power of suppliers and buyers determines the decision-making situation of materials management in relation to the suppliers. The theory of procurement policy explains the setting of prices and quantities as a function of market conditions (see Grün 1994, p. 463f). Three hypotheses were derived from this. (1) If the suppliers consider the consumers collectively, then the suppliers fix the prices and the qualities and the buyers fix the quantity. (2) If the demanders look at the suppliers collectively, then the demanders fix the prices and qualities and the suppliers fix the quantities. (3) If the market partners consider each other singularly, then volume, prices and quality are negotiated.
In the case of the first hypothesis, the supplier can set his sales policy parameters more autonomously, the larger his market share, the fewer co-suppliers there are and the more difficult it is to substitute his product. In the case of hypothesis two, the autonomy of the buyer in setting his procurement policy action parameters is greater, the more dominant his position on the procurement market, i.e. H. the fewer customers there are, the greater its share of the market volume and the more inflexible the suppliers are with regard to production changes. In the case of hypothesis three, the small number of market partners allows each other to be considered singularly. Negotiations are an essential element of the dispositive relationships in materials management, both with the suppliers and with the users.
literature
Oskar Grün: Industrial materials management. In: Marcell Schweitzer (Ed.): Industriebetriebslehre. 2nd Edition. Munich 1994, pp. 447-568, ISBN 3-8006-1755-2