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Utilities

Companies in the utilities sector often have long and complex supply chains, meaning that managing these and ensuring compliance throughout the supply base can be a difficult and time-consuming process. Utility companies source services and products from across the globe to ensure best value and quality to customers, from many suppliers, often operating in countries with different legislation to their own operational sites. This can result in a substantial amount of administration, including paperwork, telephone calls and emails to suppliers to highlight and verify supply chain risks.

Trade Interchange’s ARCUS® Supplier Management Software enables sustainability professionals within the utilities sector to request and collect large amounts of information to verify evidence of sustainable practices and certifications from potential suppliers and the products they supply. Examples of information include sustainability policies, environmental policies and certificates, evidence of membership of organisations such as the Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), or suppliers’ policies on sustainable cotton and recycled plastic.

Why ARCUS®?

  • Automate supplier on-boarding with no re-keying of data required.
  • Full visibility across sourcing, supplier relationships and products in a single platform.
  • Enables effective collaboration between multiple departments in the same organisation.
  • Artificial intelligence and machine-learning to verify suppliers’ key documentation and certificates at the point of upload.
  • Bi-directional approval workflows increase efficiency of supplier approvals and management.
  • Cloud-based central repository for supplier information and documentation at a supplier, manufacturing site and product level.

Confidence in supplier management for sustainability professionals in utilities

ARCUS® Supplier Management Software, hosted in the cloud by Trade Interchange, has been proven to work in multiple industries including the utilities sector and delivers supply base confidence for companies like Drax through a streamlined solution.

Organisations in the utilities industry can improve their sustainability through the deployment of sustainable procurement. The sustainability department has the most knowledge on sustainability aspects and is frequently responsible for target setting, while the procurement department has the relevant relationships with suppliers.

Successful sustainable procurement requires strong collaboration throughout the supplier on-boarding and approval process. The information required by sustainability professionals is collected at the same time as that by their procurement colleagues, helping to significantly reduce the time spent during the supplier on-boarding process.

ARCUS® SIM is used to collect information directly from your suppliers, who provide answers and upload documents and certificates tailored to your requirements. Artificial intelligence can be used to verify key industry certifications and to highlight areas of concerns to enable prioritisation of checking.

The module also features automated scoring, enabling both procurement and sustainability professionals to review and approve a supplier simultaneously before final approval is granted. Any concerns or notes can be recorded and viewed by all approved stakeholders across multiple departments as required.

ARCUS® SIM features automated email alerts to suppliers when information is close to becoming out of date. Additionally, workflow, including auto-escalation, ensures that professionals working in the department responsible for ensuring supplier compliance are alerted and can take actions in line with their company processes.

Providing a complete end-to-end supplier management solution for the utilities sector, the ARCUS® platform includes eight individual modules that can be implemented standalone, in any combination or in any order that can be categorised into three separate families; ARCUS® Source, ARCUS® Supply and ARCUS® Product.

Supply
Source
Product
ARCUS® SIM

ARCUS® SIM is a central platform for collecting, storing and managing supplier data, that helps reduce the risk to brand and ensure supplier compliance.

ARCUS® SCM

ARCUS® SCM centralises contract data, standardises processes and automates tasks to improve the efficiency of managing, approving and renewing contracts.

ARCUS® SPM

ARCUS® SPM is an advanced scorecard that allows users to track and evaluate the performance of suppliers against corporate SLAs and KPIs, helping to identify risk and non-compliance and maximise supplier value.

ARCUS® SSM

ARCUS® SSM maps the various stages of your current or planned strategic purchasing processes, improving efficiency, increasing visibility, reducing bottlenecks and ensuring best practice.

ARCUS® eRFX

ARCUS® eRFX is an online tendering tool used to pre-qualify current or potential suppliers, ensuring selected suppliers are qualified and able to deliver the necessary products or services.

ARCUS® eAUC

Using ARCUS® eAUC, suppliers are invited to online negotiations using the auction type best suited to the business’s needs or goals, achieving best market value without comprising on quality.

ARCUS® PIM

ARCUS® PIM automates the process for collecting detailed information about supplier products, while providing a shared view and process for all departments. This ensures product data is accurate and approved by all relevant stakeholders.

New Product Development Software

ARCUS® NPD centralises new product development information, standardises processes and automates tasks to improve the efficiency of new product development from concept through to sale.

Suggested Content...

Take a look at these resources to find out how ARCUS® Supplier Management Software has helped sustainability professionals in the utilities industry.

Drax Carousel

"Thanks to ARCUS® eAUC, our procurement team has adopted reverse eAuctions across a range of categories. By incorporating eAuctions as part of our category management toolkit, this has resulted in Drax realising cost savings over and above traditional procurement methods, while reducing the time we spend negotiating with suppliers. The eAuction tool from Trade Interchange is a low-cost solution to leverage spend across common categories of spend across Drax.”

Matthew Walker MCIPS, Supplier Relationship Manager – Turbines & Major Projects, Drax Power

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Case Study

Drax Carousel

Drax Power, who runs Europe’s biggest biomass-fuelled power station, used to manage their supplier service and product auctions using a combination of spreadsheets and paper-based systems.

This meant that auctions were not configured in a standardised format and information was difficult to locate, leading to inefficiencies within the procurement department.

They now run eAuction events using ARCUS® eAUC, a cloud-based module that encourages competitive online negotiations, leading to reduced procurement costs and improved visibility throughout the negotiation process.

Thanks to the cloud-based nature of ARCUS® eAUC, Drax Power now has the capacity to negotiate with more suppliers on a global scale and on a real-time basis.