Track: Industry 4.0

Abstract

Procurement is the process that manages business relationships of suppliers, including negotiations or services, and plays a key role for the success of many companies. In this work we discuss some of the important aspects around procurement (and towards Procurement 4.0), including the main drivers, challenges, remedies, and benefits. The main drivers are related to efficiency improvements, risk minimization and reducing human efforts in procurement process. The challenges include the adaption to Procurement 4.0, data security and lack of employee trainings. The mainly remedies concern technology and data management. The benefits of improved procurement are process optimization with digitization, skilled supplier selections, on time demand fulfillment, and on time invoicing management. Recommendations for industrial procurement are provided aiming for achieving improved operations.