KAUST
THE POWER OF PROCUREMENT PARTNERSHIPS
KAUST has built some hugely important partnerships in the last decade , all of which have played a part in developing a best-inclass procurement and supply chain function . Here , Christopher Harvey and Sayed Magthum comment on a few of its key relationships
KINTETSU WORLD EXPRESS “ We have a very good working relationship with KWE who are our main freight forwarder . They collect all of our materials for us and we get excellent data from them , so we are well prepared to clear goods from customs .”
TUNGSTEN NETWORKS “ When we first established , all of our invoices were delivered by hand , but now they are pushed through Tungsten , so all of our invoices come through on XML . Paper invoices are a thing of the past . “ Tungsten were new to Saudi so we had to together closely to understand the legality of e-invoices , and they worked well with us recently on the VAT implementation to ensure all of our invoices were compliant .”
SAP SAUDI “ The ERP system that we use is SAP , and they helped establish the systems when the
University was initiated . So , our orders are placed through SRM , our warehouse stock is managed by MM , and we use FI for our payment processes . The whole system is SAP .”
THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC “ We ’ ve developed a strategic partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific where one of their staff sits in our maintenance department . We get access to their manuals and a lot faster access to their spare parts , which is really important . We are now trying to establish a cXML connection with them so they can process our purchase orders even faster . Also , recently the Thermo Fisher Scientific Electron Microscopy Centre of Excellence opened at KAUST ”
VWR , PART OF AVANTOR “ Over the years we have established a close relationship with VWR , enabling them to pick , pack and ship our materials using the correct shipping options available to us . This has enabled us to establish a third-party program for ordering materials from suppliers with less experience in trading with KAUST ”
214 May 2018