United Airlines Sourcing Soars to New Collaborative Heights …

While the ground crews break guitars1 and break guitars2 and break guitars3 to the dismay of Dave Carroll, Taylor and Hitler. That’s right, song three launches today! (See the Countdown Timer.)  The first two songs have already garnered over 9 Million hits.)

The January 2010 issue of Inside Supply Management chronicled Grace Puma’s efforts to transform Procurement at United Airlines. Through the implementation of a standard sourcing process company-wide, that used category management teams, and alignment with strategic suppliers, through collaborative relationship development, Procurement at United Airlines has been able to obtain “better knowledge around the subcomponents of the cost” and determine what a particular item “should cost”. Wow! I guess that’s why they couldn’t afford to to fix Dave’s guitar! It’s one thing to develop “Clean Sheet” models, hold Supplier Summits, and help suppliers better understand their costs, as per this ISM article on soaring to new collaborative heights that, frankly, isn’t worth the energy to light the pixels on my MacBook Pro, but another thing entirely to actually save money and improve quality, which I guess they didn’t do as I see zero mention of any hard numbers (or real success) in the article. Maybe they should get this guy to motivate their Procurement organization!

Share This on Linked In