Please read the Case Study Below - Answer the question at the end of the case, Make sure that you are formatting citations within APA guidelines. Your submission should be prepared in a word document, Times New Roman font, 12 pitch, double spaced. No title page is required, format your in-text citations and reference, as you do in your discussion posts. When done please Upload your document

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY In early March, senior supply manager Daniel Bluestone was reviewing information he had collected about the supply management function at Metropolitan University as part of his first major work assignment in the universitys supply management department. Much of the data suggested that adequate controls did not exist for the purchasing process.

Metropolitan University Metropolitan University was a private educational institution located in New York City. Last year, the universitys twenty-two schools, 25,000 undergraduates and graduate students, and 6.000 employees occupied 390 buildings on a sprawling urban campus.

The Supply Management Environment University policy clearly stated that all buying responsibility rested with the supply management department, and gave the department a classic charter to obtain the best quality, price and delivery for needed materials and services. In the calendar year just passed, 30,000 purchase orders were issued, with an aggregate value of $35 million. Both the number of individual orders and the dollar value had been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, and it was expected that this would continue for the foreseeable future as the university maintained its planned expansion. A new $150 million capital improvement plan was under consideration. The supply management organization consisted of thirteen people, six of whom had specific commodity buying responsibilities. Department head count had not changed in four years because of strict budget constraints imposed by the university administration. When there was an occasional vacancy, attracting qualified supply professionals to the academic environment was difficult. Supply management faced an increasing sophistication of the supply and service needs of the Metropolitan community as technology levels rose. Greater supply manager breadth and expertise were required just to stay current with user demand. The supply management department was using temporary personnel and student aides to stay current with the workload. Three months ago, Daniel Bluestone came to the university with about a dozen years of industrial procurement experience. When he was hired, the director of supply management asked him to take on a six-month overview assignment to look at current supply policy and procedure.

The Purchase Order Process The supply management system at Metropolitan University was paper-based and manually operated. When a need was identified, the requester filled out a preprinted and pre-numbered requisition form, obtained necessary approvals, and transmitted the completed form to supply management. Blank forms were widely available. Incoming requisitions were sorted by commodity area and given to the appropriate supply manager on a first-come, first-served basis. No priority was assigned and each requisition got the same attention. supply managers would complete the purchase, adding their identifying letter code to the sixdigit number already on the form. Receiving documents and invoices were matched with purchase orders in the supply management department, sent to the requisitioner for approval, and, subsequently, to accounting for payment.

The Control Problem Requisitioners complained that supply management was not responsive to needs, was taking too long to handle emergencies, and was unable to provide status information on requisitions and purchase orders in process. The situation at the present time was such that a significant number of requisitioners had broken the supply managers letter codes, and were beating the system by adding the appropriate buyer code to purchase orders and placing their own orders directly with suppliers. Suppliers voiced common complaints that payments were continually late, and that questions about invoice status went unanswered. Daniel Bluestone felt that the rest of his six-month departmental analysis project would be wasted if supply management did not address the control issue immediately.

Assume you are a consultant called in to work with Daniel Bluestone. List and discuss in some detail the major problems you see in the present Metropolitan University supply management operation.