Enterprise and its functions-Part 1

Years back ,Myself and couple of my friends joined a company ,A company that manufactures piston rings.

On the first day ,we were being introduced to different department heads Production,Stores,Purchasing,HR,Quality and Inspection,New product development,Sales and Marketing and planning.

So you got it ? A large Enterprise has many department/functions.We were very curious about our department allocation.I got allocated to shop-floor ,My friend Prakash got allocated to purchasing (Remember P for Purchase/Prakash)..

Though every department has it own functions/roles..For the success of the enterprise ,It is important the individual department effectively communicates with other department and this is what we call in the software packaged applications as seamless integration

Now ,Let us explore each and every department and its corresponding functions and a co-relation to the oracle eBusiness suite.

Taking first the purchasing department.
Unlike me ,Prakash enjoyed a white collar job in the purchase department and he is being approached by all department people to procure one or other thing.

For example..
HR department needs Uniform clothes,Stationery's,Gift coupons,Chairs etc etc.
Production department requires Raw materials,Machines
Quality department requires gauges,scales,specialised equipments used in Labs..etc
Stores requires items as monthly replenishment ..etc..etc and
Many more ...

How does a purchasing department fulfill these needs ? What processes they need to maintain for an effective procurement and how does the performance of the purchasing department is measured ?..Let us explore

A typical day-to-day activities(some) of prakash(P for prakash/purchase) includes ..
1.Collect all the Purchase Requisitions from the drop box
2.Call up vendors ,check availability,check price ,chose vendor and raise purchase
order
3.get approval for the purchase orders
4.Inform Vendors about the purchase orders ,send the purchase orders via
email/Post/collect in person
Just imagine how difficult,painstaking,cumbersome the task will be if you maintain everything manually/excel sheets or in a stand lone applications.

Let us explore the challenges/solutions/department sub functions in the next part
and co-relate to the oracle applications