Stuttgart, Germany – On November 9, 2016, Bosch received the Association Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME) Innovation Award. Through this accolade, the association acknowledges the outstanding achievements of the supplier of technology and services in the realignment of its indirect purchasing. The operating unit is responsible for purchasing all services, capital goods, and materials that are not used directly in products. As part of a concept implemented globally, Bosch managed to set indirect purchasing up for future success, according to the jury’s statement. Since 2011, Bosch has standardized numerous procurement processes and intensified the centralization of material requirements. “Our evolution into an agile purchasing organization, with a global orientation based on different material categories, is an important factor in our business success. It makes a significant contribution to Bosch’s competitive and innovative capabilities,” says Jörg Mimmel, executive vice president of the corporate sector for purchasing and logistics at Robert Bosch GmbH, who is responsible for indirect purchasing.

“Thanks to a much higher degree of automation in our order processes, we are able to act with greater speed and efficiency. We have improved our budgetary efficiency – in other words, the budget we use relative to the savings we made – by more than 30 per cent, ” adds Mimmels.