Bosch continues to expand its digital supply chains

Stuttgart / Blaichach, Germany – On its path to becoming a leading provider of IoT and mobility solutions, Bosch is further expanding its digital supply chains. By 2021, the company wants to use cloud and platform solutions to handle more than 85 percent of its global purchasing volume. “In a connected world, digitalized supply chains are crucial if we are to meet the personalized, highly specific requirements of our customers more quickly. Those who fail to digitalize will lose out,” said Prof. Stefan Asenkerschbaumer, deputy chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH, at the international ceremony to present the Bosch Global Supplier Awards. “Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular still have a lot of potential to generate further growth and improve their competitive positions.” As Asenkerschbaumer explained, Bosch is planning, for example, to fully digitalize the receipt of incoming goods together with its suppliers. Another goal is to enable the company’s suppliers around the world to view Bosch’s manufacturing needs in real time, thereby optimizing transportation networks and lowering CO₂ emissions. Across the globe, around 37,000 Bosch associates work in purchasing and logistics; they keep around 270 manufacturing plants supplied with more than 300 million parts every day.

Stable procurement spending despite cooling economy
Speaking to some 100 representatives of the supplier industry at the awards event near Blaichach, Asenkerschbaumer said: “Despite a sluggish economy, we expect our purchasing volume in 2019 to reach more than 40 billion euros.” Over the last ten years, the company’s total purchasing volume – for raw materials, services, and capital goods – exceeded 340 billion euros. This makes Bosch an important customer for its suppliers. To secure mutual success, the Bosch CFO believes it is necessary to deploy innovative purchasing and logistics strategies to achieve cost advantages at an early stage, and to fully digitalize the company’s supply networks: “It’s not just in the realm of competitive prices that we expect an innovative approach from our supply chain partners; we also want them to work with us to conserve natural resources,” he said. Bosch only recently announced its plan to make its manufacturing and administrative operations climate neutral at all locations worldwide by 2020. As the first global industrial enterprise to do so, Bosch wants to set an example here and motivate its suppliers to achieve carbon neutrality as well.

Bosch Global Supplier Awards: honoring excellence
In his address, the Bosch CFO Asenkerschbaumer paid tribute to the company’s award-winning suppliers: “Our suppliers and service providers are our partners, and central to Bosch’s competitiveness and transformation.” At yesterday evening’s ceremony, Bosch bestowed its coveted Global Supplier Awards on its 47 best international suppliers for their exceptional performance in the production and supply of products as well as the provision of services. A panel of judges selected the award-winners in the categories of indirect materials, raw materials, and components by business sector. A special category of award was presented to suppliers of products, processes, and technologies that offered Bosch a lot of innovation potential. Bosch has been presenting these biennial awards to honor supplier excellence since 1987, and they are highly regarded in the industry.

Innovation category: three winners for the first time
This year, the award in the Innovation category was conferred on three different companies for the first time. Catalytic, a U.S.-based cloud platform operator, won over the judges with a digital DIY procedure for process automation. The ease with which processes can be automated using this procedure promises efficiency gains for users. Bosch also honored Ecoroll, a German manufacturer, for its innovative process in which hydrostatic tools help deep-roll complex contours in small holes to increase a component’s service life. Japan Display, a Japanese manufacturer, won its award for a curved display used in vehicle instrument clusters. Despite having the same dimensions as the previous model, the new model boasts a larger display panel.

A list of all the winners of the Bosch Global Supplier Awards is available here.