Streamlining direct material sourcing from Design to Contract- Secure collaboration

[praveen_kunigalathmaramas]

Engineering changes can be a profit killer. Delays can devastate time to market. The answer? Strategic partnerships with direct material suppliers who are engaged early in product design. Collaboration prevents rework, accelerates time to market and safeguards your bottom line. Without it, companies risk escalating costs, lost revenue and damaged reputations.

Manufacturers need a robust and collaborative direct sourcing platform to fully realize these benefits. It must enable intuitive, context-driven collaboration between internal teams (R&D, project management, manufacturing, quality) and supplier’s stakeholders, with ironclad security for sensitive business data.

SAP Ariba Direct Material Sourcing delivers this critical capability, streamlining sourcing from design to contract. The SAP S/4HANA 2023 FPS03 release enhances this further with native integration into SAP Integrated Product Development, enabling secure collaboration on engineering drawings and specifications—ultimately driving higher profit margins

Here is how the new capability works:

1. Create secure internal collaboration by inviting cross functional experts to finalise the designs and specifications which needs to be shared with suppliers who gets invited into the sourcing process

2. Standard workflow which orchestrates finalisation of the drawings and specifications in the collaboration and notifies sourcing manager via status update to publish the sourcing project to invited suppliers

3. Invited suppliers can securely access the shared drawings and specifications via SAP Supplier quotation management (Supplier application) to fully understand the design requirements of the requested direct materials

4. Supplier’s can use markup for any clarifications which they need from buyer’s organisation

5. Right stakeholder from buyer’s organization provides clarifications intime to supplier and system takes care of keeping all the discussion intact

6. Supplier creates and submit the best quotation with the complete understanding of the requirements associated with every material quoted in the quotation

7. Sourcing manager along with other expert stakeholders reviews the supplier quotation to finalize the award decision. Buying organization stakeholders can use markups to clarify supplier response.

This new capability delivers significant benefits:

• Faster Time-to-Market: Streamlined collaboration and automated workflows accelerate design finalization and sourcing processes.
• Reduced Costs: Early collaboration prevents costly engineering changes and rework.
• Improved Supplier Engagement: Secure access and clear communication enable suppliers to submit accurate and competitive bids.
• Enhanced Quality: Thorough design reviews and clear specifications ensure high-quality products.
• Increased Collaboration Efficiency: Secure platform fosters seamless collaboration between internal teams and suppliers.