Report
Implementing Purchasing and Supply Chain Management: Best Practices in Market Research
Dec 12, 2006
Format | File Size | Notes |
---|---|---|
PDF file | 0.1 MB | Use Adobe Acrobat Reader version 10 or higher for the best experience. |
The U.S. Air Force is adopting widely accepted commercial "best practices" to change the way it purchases goods and services, with the goals of reducing costs and improving performance to better support its missions. Part of this effort involves the establishment of "commodity councils" (or commodity teams), cross-functional teams of stakeholders who develop and implement Air Force–wide strategies for purchasing specific categories of commodities such as computers or medical supplies.
Commodity teams need information and analyses in order to do their jobs effectively. Market research is essential to assembling and maintaining a supply base that best meets the Air Force's needs. A RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) study provides a "how-to" guide to help Air Force commodity councils conduct market research. The guide emphasizes the following tasks:
The Air Force has made progress toward implementing purchasing and supply chain management and market research. But the implementation of the market research process outlined above requires additional support from the Air Force. The overriding lessons from the literature and interviews with commercial enterprises are relevant to ensuring the Air Force's success: (1) Improve data availability, quality, and utilization; (2) provide training for commodity teams; and (3) ensure the support of top Air Force management and buy-in among personnel.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation Research brief series. RAND research briefs present policy-oriented summaries of individual published, peer-reviewed documents or of a body of published work.
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.