Manufacturing and Planning can be together however purchase cannot. The Manufacturign guy might not get enough to concentrate on day-to-day affairs and would be busy with procurement only.
Procurement and Stores can be together and planning has to be with Manufacturing. This would facilitate Pull system also and lesser WIP.
Please let me know if i am wrong. i have been doing like this only.
I don't think it is so much as anyone being right or wrong, but what makes sense for a particular organization. In a smaller organization that is using highly engineered components, it may make sense to let engineering do some of the purchasing. This would be especially true when it comes to product development and prototyping.
Once a part is approved or certified for use, then it could be handed off to a more traditional purchasing process.
If you look at the S&OP (Sales & Operation Planning process) it utilizes a cross functional team to help drive the business, look at priorities/forecasts, and determine any capacity or capability issues that may arise.
Back in my engineering days, the only thing that person in purchasing did many times was cut the purchase order. I had done the research as to what vendor, part number, quantity, etc.; were required. It was also likely that we might never use those components again as we often made very small runs for customers where the quote came in on a Monday and the final product/s shipped on a Friday.
From a quoting perspective, at one place I had an engineer and purchasing person sitting across from another in a small office in order to reduce the turnaround time to identify and get pricing for new parts. We knocked over 10 days off the quoting process by removing the need for all the e-mails and paperwork flying back and forth in the prior set-up.
It is about determining what makes the most sense for your particular organization and the type of work you are doing. Being in a highly repetitive environment is different than being in a highly engineered or custom shop.
Wayne
