Morgan Sindall Group were seeking support in refreshing their knowledge of procurement and supply chain management via our Procurement learning journey of workshops. The aim was to engage with and involve the value chain from clients to tier 1s. The participants therefore consisted of Supply Chain and Procurement Directors and Managers from Morgan Sindall’s various divisions and business units, client-side representation from Network Rail and National Highways and Tier 1 contractor Emico.
The Supply Chain Sustainability School started out by ensuring the participants undertook the procurement self-assessment of 14 skill/topic areas within procurement as a function and scored themselves ranging from 1 point for minimal knowledge to 5 points for expert level knowledge. The executive sponsor from Morgan Sindall ensured the participants were registered for the workshops and engaged in the conversations that followed.
The workshop topics selected by Morgan Sindall were – Introduction to Procurement, Value through Plant & Materials Procurement, Value through Subcontract Procurement, Supplier Performance Management, Supplier Relationship Management, and Collaboration in Procurement.
The workshops provided a forum for participants to relive the basics of the ‘Plan-Source-Manage’ part of the procurement process and to dive deeper into the details of what the process entails, what could be missing from their current tools and processes, and where better practice could be implemented, especially in supplier performance and relationship management.
The workshop offered plenty of live examples and discussion points to drive down the learning. Attendance across the value chain meant that participants could see where leaner, more efficiency could be brought into the process, where the barriers were for added value and the mitigation measures to make procurement and supply chain management more efficient.
The benefit of these workshop sessions was that it provided for an appreciation for procurement as a function and process and how it ties in with work winning/the bidding team and what can be incorporated early on to ensure that important added value considerations were not left out in the procurement process later on.
Outcomes from Phase 1 lead to Phase 2 wherein we:
a) Are engaging with the Tier 1 supplier who have seen the benefits of upskilling themselves and are engaging to become a School partner to gain access to more procurement resources.
b) Identified procurement resources from our School to align with the Job Descriptions of staff in the Nuclear division to:
• Create the standard for competence for each role.
• To ensure they have and maintain SQEP’d resources.
