Traditional procurement processes are too rigid and too slow to support these changes. The pace of business has changed dramatically in the last few years. Everything is moving faster. Product cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Customers are demanding better service.
Procurement is now the most inefficient link in the manufacturing chain.
Luckily the Internet provides a unique opportunity to network the manufacturing plant and its supply chain in an efficient, intelligent, collaborative procurement process. In a way, yes. In most discrete manufacturing plants, supplier communications are still handled by phone and by fax. While some plants have implemented EDI, it remains too complex and too expensive to be widely adopted. And EDI itself is also too rigid.