Purchasing Perf ormance Evaluation: An Investigation of Diff erent Perspectives

Purchasing professionals play essential roles in the purchasing decision‐making process, coordinating and guiding all buying team members to achieve the best performance of the group as a whole. This research project examines ten key purchasing performance measures as viewed by three types of players in the purchasing decision‐making processnamely, purchasing mangers, buyers, and internai customers. A key finding of the study is that the quality of purchased items presently is viewed as the most important measure, and that it should continue to be the most important measure for evaluating purchasing performance in the 1990s. It was also discovered that purchasing managers, buyers, and their internai customers hold different opinions about the measures of on‐time delivery, PO cycle time, accuracy, and professionalism. The purchasing function should evaluate the differences between the three groups with regard to these performance measures in order to effect continuous improvement and the implementation of effective, consistent purchasing strategies. Practicing managers, regardless of the function in which they work, can acquire some useful and practicai insights f rom this study by examining the weights assigned to the ten key purchasing performance measures. The views obtained f rom those participating in this study are very likely applicable in other environments as well. The last section of the study provides data that can be used in a computer program to evaluate purchasing performance.