Supplier management at Messe München

Messe München optimizes its supplier management with supplier evaluation and document management using software from Simmeth System.

With more than 50 of its own trade fairs for capital goods, consumer goods and new technologies in Munich and abroad, Messe München is one of the world’s leading trade fair companies. Messe München currently organizes 10 leading international trade fairs, including bauma, the world’s largest trade fair in terms of exhibition space.

The concept

In 2011, Messe München launched the “SPEED Project Procurement Optimization”. The aim was to optimize strategic and operational purchasing in order to use this strategy to increase the efficiency of Messe München’s central purchasing department. An important system-side component of this project was the introduction of a system-supported supplier evaluation in the first step, which will be embedded in a central, standardized and comprehensive supplier management system in the second step. With the SC-Manager software solution from Simmeth System, these project modules could be perfectly integrated.

The project: Supplier Management Munich Trade Fair

The core of the project is a central database as an information base, which is synchronized with the vendor master data and all order and invoice data in the ERP system. Certificates, references, contracts and all other documents relating to suppliers are also stored in the database and managed centrally. Among other things, the system calculates contract expiry dates and automatically notifies the purchasing department of the relevant deadlines by email. Important key figures such as order and invoice volumes are determined continuously and are available to the purchasers with practical analysis functions and deviation notes.

Implementation

The core data of the ERP system is supplemented by extensive additional information such as risk indicators and supplier self-disclosures for Messe München supplier management. The self-disclosures are obtained from the supplier via a workflow by email and regularly updated.

Potential suppliers that do not yet exist in the ERP system’s vendor master can also be registered and prequalified and are available to the purchasing department in central supplier management.

Supplier evaluation

With the help of the supplier evaluation integrated into Messe München’s supplier management system, the strengths and weaknesses of suppliers are regularly and standardized assessed using web-based questionnaires, which are automatically distributed to the specialist departments by e-mail. The results are calculated transparently via a scorecard and are available to the buyers in supplier management at any time for detailed analysis and for supplier discussions.

“With the software from Simmeth System, our purchasing department now has a precisely defined, coordinated and documented supplier management system. An important component of our “SPEED Project Procurement Optimization” project has been successfully implemented,” says Peter Melber, Head of Central Purchasing at Messe München, assessing the successful project.

Conclusion on supplier management at Messe München

With Simmeth System’s supplier management system, Messe München’s central purchasing department has both a central tool for strategic purchasing and a tool for day-to-day business in operational purchasing. Processes such as regular supplier self-assessments are now system-supported in controlled workflows. Distributed subsystems have been eliminated and integrated into the central database solution.

“The master data quality alone has increased by 80 percent in just a short time thanks to the transparency and clarity of the supplier management system,” notes Katharina Dedler, Head of Strategic Procurement Management at Messe München.

“The supplier evaluation with its clear web questionnaires is easy to carry out and enjoys a high level of acceptance,” adds Isabelle Heckmann-Zimmermann, Strategic Buyer at Messe München. “In the third year of evaluation since the system was introduced, more than 152 suppliers have been evaluated with the help of over 566 questionnaires sent out. We now have an excellent database as a starting point for supplier discussions and systematic supplier development.”