Mastering purchasing activities

Understanding needs, complying with customer, normative and legal requirements, and contributing to the achievement of objectives are all necessary to ensure the control and efficiency of the purchasing department's activities (purchasing process), and to comply with the ISO 9001 standard.

The purchasing process is defined in six main stages:

• validating the need ;

• supplier consultation ;

• supplier selection ;

• placing orders ;

• incoming inspection of the purchased material or product;

• supplier evaluation.

This fact sheet introduces you to purchasing activities, how best to manage them and how to meet the associated standards.