RIVIAN AUTOMOTIVE
“IT ' S A MULTI-GENERATIONAL PURPOSE THAT GOES BEYOND ANY ONE OF US , WHICH IS WHAT DRIVES THE OVERALL CULTURE AT RIVIAN ”
BRAD HOOD DIRECTOR OF INDIRECT PURCHASING RIVIAN
“ When you log in , you see the category , you select that category , and it gives you a brief description to tell you if you can buy it from a catalogue — so we can drive more spend to a catalogue — or it gives you a direction to reach out to a purchasing manager or supplier ,” Hood explains .
“ That way , we can touch more spend with a smaller team , increasing the addressability of the spend and continuing to educate the rest of the organisation to drive spend to our preferred buying channels .”
Further sourcing platforms used by the company provide further standardisation of indirect procurement processes . This includes supplier negotiation preparation , which can largely be templated — as Hood explains .
“ If we are working on an e-sourcing event or an auction , we can leverage these templates . “ Automatically , a quantitative proposal comes in and we can analyse that based on our previous price paid , other proposals , market intelligence ,” says Hood .
“ We can look at that pretty quickly and find any outliers , identify where the best quantitative values are and work with our stakeholders as we incorporate the qualitative aspects . These tools really allow us to work faster .”
While businesses would often apply the term ‘ digital transformation ’ to their operations , it seems Rivian is beyond this , ensuring that technology is embedded into all processes from the earliest possible stage as part of its strategic approach to growth .
A Tour of the Rivian Plant | Go behind the scenes with founder RJ Scaringe
EVMAGAZINE . COM [ Jan 2023 ] 55