Organizational Concepts for Purchasing and Supply Management Implementation

This report presents a construct for organizing Air Force acquisition and purchasing activities to execute purchasing and supply management (PSM). PSM is defined as a strategic, enterprise-wide, long-term, multifunctional, dynamic approach to selecting suppliers of goods and services. PSM also involves managing not only suppliers but the whole network-from raw materials to final use and disposal-continually reducing ownership costs, managing risks, and improving quality, responsiveness, reliability, and flexibility. A PSM demonstration was chartered as a result of the Air Force "Spares Campaign," which was intended to review the Air Force parts supply process. Eight initiatives were targeted to modernize the spares process and ultimately put more spares into the hands of maintainers. The last initiative focused on improving PSM. As a first step, PSM was to be implemented at the F100 engine shop at the Oklahoma Air Logistics Center. The document suggests organizational options for implementing PSM to better align contracting and logistics functions with process changes. It presents a flexible, springboard design to guide implementation of the process.