It was organised by the company CNH, which groups global brands and provides development, production and other services for brands such as New Holland, Steyr, Raven and others. The objective was to introduce a supply chain transformation model and the individual transition stages into a different purchasing process. We were invited as a potential new supplier.
The total number of attendees at the conference, including CNH representatives, was ca. 1,200 from about 500 companies.
The reason for the supply change transformation is that currently the procurement department is limited on everyday basis when it comes to their capacity for sourcing new suppliers and the subsequent homologisation and testing. CNH wants to build a reliable supplier network from the ground up available for both ongoing and new projects. CNH also wants to use their suppliers for applications across all production plants and engage in ongoing development of new products with selected suppliers.
In case that the subsequent business-technical offer presented by HKS Forge will be acceptable, or we will be selected as a potential partner, an audit and negotiation process will ensue. The estimated duration of the process is 14–16 months. The forgings department is managed by Strategic Procurement, based in Italy.
During the presentations of the top CNH representatives, a new direction in the area of manufacture of agricultural and construction machines was globally introduced, focused on the maximum unification rate of the used parts in connection with minimising downtime. As a result of the constant change in climate conditions, the effective deployment time of individual mechanisms is significantly reduced.
The current economic downturn was presented by the CNH representatives as a cyclic economic phase, while the downturn in North America is mainly caused by low incomes of farmers and reduced capital availability. They want to use this phase to optimise the supply chain.
In case of positive results, there is an opportunity for each company to obtain new product implementations with the vision of continuous growth. For HKS Forge, this is a great opportunity to cooperate with a global company. The conference also shed a light on one of the ways to increase sales by cooperating with global companies from variety of industries with diversified product portfolios.
