WERFEN
“ BEFORE THE PANDEMIC , WE THOUGHT WE WERE BUSY ; BUT , ONCE IT HIT , OUR DEFINITION OF BUSY CHANGED ”
DON PERIGNY DIRECTOR , STRATEGIC PROCUREMENT & SUPPLY CHAIN COMPLIANCE , WERFEN
excellence is our mandate . Data drives us .” Procurement challenges for the medical device industry When it comes to procurement , Perigny explains that the days of pounding your fist on the desk and demanding suppliers bow to your every whim are long gone - thankfully something that was never his approach , anyway .
“ We don ’ t have vendors , we have suppliers ,” he says . “ In baseball terms , a vendor is the van outside selling hotdogs ; we want our partners to be an extension of our company , and I think this approach has driven our success .”
Like many other organisations , 2020 saw Werfen go head-to-head with its greatest challenge yet : COVID-19 . “ Before the pandemic , we thought we were busy ; but , once it hit , our definition of busy changed ,” says Perigny . “ Much of this was due to a loss of the control we previously had on our procurement process . We had to compete for labour with our suppliers , and as the pandemic rolled out across the world , we faced this over and over , due to our global supplier base .” manufacturingdigital . com 31