Supply Chain Optimisation Procurement Plan
This is a practical guide to building a procurement plan for a supply chain optimisation project — what will be bought, how and from whom, adapted to the realities of improving the efficiency and resilience of the supply chain.
What a Procurement Plan is
A procurement plan is what will be bought, how and from whom. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Procurement Management. On a supply chain optimisation project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Supply Chain Optimisation project
Supply Chain Optimisation projects live or die on improving the efficiency and resilience of the supply chain. A well-built procurement plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how supply chain optimisation projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- What to procure
- Contract types
- Selection criteria
- Timeline and SLAs
Supply Chain Optimisation-specific considerations
Tailor the procurement plan to the risks that most often derail supply chain optimisation projects:
- Data visibility
- Supplier coordination
- Change to established processes
Example
On a real supply chain optimisation project, the procurement plan would be shaped by improving the efficiency and resilience of the supply chain. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — data visibility, supplier coordination, change to established processes — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.