Company Operations: Functions, Departments, and Supply Chain
Company Overview
The company, an economic unit, aims to make a profit through its business operations.
Rating and Sectors
The company’s operations can be categorized into sectors:
- Primary Sector: Mining, with the main activity being the extraction of materials.
- Secondary Sector: Industrial, with the main activity being the transformation or production of raw materials or semi-finished products.
- Tertiary Sector: Services, with its activity available to all companies producing goods and services.
Company Functions
The company performs several key functions:
- Technical: Activities performed for the manufacture of commercial products. This includes the sale of the products it makes.
- Financial: Activities related to capital flow.
- Social: Relations, including social aspects of active personnel labor, performed by the HR department.
- Administrative: Management’s managing and controlling operations in different sections of the company.
Company Organization
The company’s organization is represented through organizational charts that classify the different departments.
Purchasing Department
Responsible for managing the acquisition of products and services necessary for the company’s operation.
Personnel in Purchasing
- Purchasing Manager: Responsible for coordinating and controlling all management activities. Functions include setting goals, creating budgets, organizing activities, and receiving material requests.
- Buyers: Responsible for hiring services and materials necessary for the company, reporting to the purchasing manager.
Supply and Purchasing
Provisioning is material sourcing, and buying is acquiring goods.
Provisioning Management
The set of operations performed by the company to manage supplies and acquired materials. Functions include elaboration, storage, managing costs, and inventories. Objectives include calculating company needs, minimizing investment, and cooperating with inventories and the purchasing department.
Provisioning Needs
Justification: The provisioning warehouse is necessary to maintain the pace of production and finished products, and to regulate the consumer market.
Situations that require the company to provision the warehouse:
- When the manufacturing chain is active.
- When manufacturing is seasonal and demand is constant.
- When centers are located far away.
Products, Materials, and Stocks
Products: A set of materials that have undergone an elaboration process.
Materials: Components of a product; these are tangible goods.
Stocks: The set of materials the company has stored, pending use. Goods in stock can be raw materials or other merchandise for provisioning.
Other provisioning according to the General Chart of Accounts (PGC): fuel and spare parts, joint elements, and incorporable items.
Material Flow and Circuit
The circuit that the material travels, from extraction to the client or consumer, involves two stages: the storage stage (provisioning channel) and the distribution channel.