As an East Westphalian confectionery producer, August Storck KG owns well-known brands such as Toffifee, merci, Nimm2, Werther’s Original, and Knoppers, which are bought and consumed by many people around the world every day. The materials and services required by the company are procured by the central purchasing department. Effective and efficient purchasing processes are used to master internal and external challenges and contribute to the sustainable, profitable growth of the family-owned company.
As a result, the job holder came across the BPM&O Academy and attended the ‘Operational Process Management’ seminar. ‘How can our processes be continuously improved so that pure processing activities are less time-consuming, and our employees can focus on the rapidly changing, volatile procurement markets?’ The Purchasing Director asked himself this question and created a full-time position of ‘Process Manager Purchasing’, which was initially intended to build up expertise in process management.
Process development
The main process ‘Procurement of materials and services’ was developed with the managers. On this basis, contracts were assigned for the development of the included processes, and these were developed together with the process participants in the form of target process workshops. Following this seminar, the realization quickly emerged that all those responsible should be involved. The department heads and other internal process experts therefore underwent initial training. The first steps towards establishing a process-oriented purchasing department were taken and, with the help of the BPM&O methods, a great deal of awareness and interest was aroused. Immediate improvements (quick wins) were not long in coming.
The department heads were also given the new role of ‘process owner’ for one of the core processes in purchasing. Managers and purchasing staff received intensive training in process management and were allowed to help shape the purchasing processes in the process workshops.
The executive roles were then filled with the tasks from the processes and specified with the necessary competencies. The managers were supported by BPM&O during the implementation of the role concept in the existing organization.
Our added value
Many training sessions, group and one-to-one meetings had to be held initially to raise awareness of process management and make its benefits tangible. The conscious control of the internal project manager and his increasing confidence in process management are evidence that our empowerment approach works and provides the best basis for anchoring process management in the company in the long term. ‘Although there was no top-down mandate from the management, the Purchasing Director took the initiative for his area of responsibility and initially placed a lot of ‘faith and hope’ in process management. I find this particularly interesting as, as a purchaser, he is all the more used to focusing on business benefits. In the meantime, there is already a concrete order from a managing director for a cross-divisional working group about process management,’ says project manager Armin Neises from BPM&O.
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