ERNI Electronics implements global materials procurement strategy to meet high demand

For ERNI Electronics, 2018 was the most successful year in the company’s history. And the trend is continuing, with significant growth in incoming orders. The challenge is to increase and secure production capacities in a fast-paced market. With no significant let-up in demand expected in the medium term, ERNI is working hard to develop various strategic measures to enable it to continue supplying customers with the required volumes reliably and on time.

The company has made capital investments and recruited new staff in its purchasing department, with further optimisations to follow. However, the measures taken to date are not sufficient on their own to relieve the supply situation on a sustained basis. To address this problem, Ingo Kaufmann was appointed to the newly created position of Head of Global Strategic Procurement. He will use his commercial expertise to globally realign raw materials purchasing in an important step towards global materials procurement. Until now there has been a heavy focus on the company’s headquarters in Adelberg.

As part of the strategic realignment, ERNI Electronics is also investing in a team consisting of global purchasing offices that will assist Ingo Kaufmann in his role. “I am looking forward to the challenging and interesting tasks at ERNI,” Kaufmann says. “And I particularly want to press ahead with the digitalisation of global purchasing, together with my team.”

Increased use of the international procurement network is a key step in ensuring even more focused and reliable purchasing, to achieve a balance between incoming orders and production. In particular, materials and raw materials procurement will be stepped up in the United States and Asia. More strategic measures to increase and expand production capacities will follow.