It is easy to get caught up in routine activities when you are manager of the purchasing function. The demands of the job keep all of us busy. There are requisitions to clarify. There are salespeople to interview. There are suppliers to locate for certain products never before purchased. There are quality problems to resolve. There are late shipments to be expedited. All of these tasks and many others require the manager’s attention.

So much time is devoted to the routine that little or none is spent on reflection and study to improve the purchasing operation. And when you do have a few moments, where do you begin? What needs to be worked on that will help? What has really been neglected for many years? It is easier to answer these questions if you prepare a list of topics that are involved in everyday operations.

The list can be developed by using the table of contents in either the Handbook of Buying and Purchasing Management, or Purchasing Fundamentals for Today’s Buyer. Alternatively, you can see the topics mentioned in the articles listed on the American Purchasing Society’s Web at www.american-purchasing.com. Also, you can look at your policy and procedure manual to see what subjects may need revision.

The list may contain two or three dozen subjects. Number them from one to ten showing which you think are causing the most problems and consuming the most time. Then you will see where you will gain the most by working on the worst problem areas first.

If your operation is running smoothly and you are not having any problems, you should still look at each subject periodically. Most operations can be improved in one way or another, but unless you stop the routine for a few minutes and think about what could be done, nothing will improve.

Place a review target date beside each subject. Dates may be inserted twelve or eighteen months in the future, perhaps one subject per month. Sometimes, because of workload, it may be necessary to skip a project for any particular month, then you would need to reschedule.