The Harvester World: Volume 9, number 5, May 1918

              We Buy So You Can Manufacture and Sell

By W. B. Edgar, Manager Purchasing Department

IT IS the purchasing department's responsibility to provide material and supplies for the various manufacturing plants and railroads operated by our Companies in the United States and Canada and under normal conditions to purchase certain grades of lumber for plants located in European countries as well as such other items of material and sup¬ plies for these plants as are drawn from this country.
This organization is composed of a corps of buyers located at the general office, and at the outside plants, such as Hamilton, Ontario; Akron, Ohio; Springfield, Ohio, and Auburn, New York, where the department is represented by men who carry the title of assistant buyers.
Each buyer at the general office specializes on individual lines. For instance, one pur¬ chases machinery and plant equipment, an¬ other building material, electrical supplies, etc., another steel and steel products, another lumber, another wagon material, another paint material, fuel, etc., another paper stocks and office supplies and so on, each man being a trained expert in his particular line.
Practically all of them are men who began work with our Company as boys at some one of the various plants and there acquired an intimate knowledge of material through com¬ ing in personal contact with it as it passed from its raw state to the completed manu¬ factured article. This has not only brought to the department men with shop training, but it is a practical demonstration of the Company's policy of filling advanced positions with men already within the organization.
The major portion of purchases are divided into two classes, material and supplies. Ma¬ terial is that which directly enters into the product, such as pig iron, steel, lumber, cot¬ ton duck, paint, etc. Supplies consist of such articles necessary to convert material from one stage of manufacture to another, such as coal, coke, fuel oil, lubricants, abra¬ sives, fire brick, belting, hose, picks, shovels and many other items, all essential and all required in the twenty-one opei-ations (includ¬ ing railroads) of the International Harvester Companies in the United States and Canada.
Under normal times the buyer thought he had his trials and tribulations ip his endeavor to provide the enormous quantities of material and supplies the various plants consumed, but today, in the midst of a great scarcity of material occasioned by war demands, traffic interruption and freight embargoes, he wonders
how he was able fully to occupy his time in those good old days.
We are told the combined annual output of all manufacturing plants in the United States ranging from perfumery to railroad loco¬ motives, is about $25,0<X),000,00() and we are told the United States government will spend this year about $19,000,(K)0,0()0 for war mu¬ nitions and supplies — but we are not told how the buyer with the residue is to protect normal business.
Fortunately, our Company through its fore- sightedness, has the enviable advantage of being able to produce large (luantities of its material by owning its iron ore, boats for transporting it from the head of the lakes to South Chicago, large tracts of coal lands — from which it produces blast furnace coke and coal for some of our malleable furnaces — blast furnaces producing a portion of our Bessemer pig iron requirements, steel mills, producing large quantities of bar steel, timber lands and saw mills. From day to day the works are producing a larger percentage of the machine product items, meaning fewer complete parts to be bought on the outside, all of which is along the lines of better service and better product.
Attending the branch managers' dinners the past winter and listening to the splendid reports of about one hundred representatives from different parts of the United States and Canada, all bringing in good reports from their respective territories, all sanguine as to the future, all clamorous for larger quantities of machinery to sell, none deterred by the high prices or trade conditions, I said to my¬ self they have the ball on the alley of 606 Michigan avenue aud it is up to the purchas¬ ing department to get the material in time for the manufacturing department to produce the goods, so the traffic department can get them to their destination.
This responsibility is keenl)' appreciated and we shall do everything humanly possil)le to prevent any disappointments, for I can assure you the purcliasing department is just as keenly interested as any other department of this business in looking forward with pleasant anticipations to the branch managers' 1918 success, aud trust they can continue to tell the old, old story of increased volume, increased cash, reduced selling expense and reduced carry. To this end every department in this business shall have the hearty, cordial and sympathetic co-operation of the purchas¬ ing department.