Vendor Management

• Production efficiency improvement: At Bantam Doubleday Dell implemented improvements in vendor relationship management that resulted in a reduction of $2.1 million in pricing, reduced contract print cycle by 15-days, and improved on-time delivery to 99+ percent. BDD's president was quoted in Publishers Weekly naming manufacturing cost reduction as one of the three sources of BDD's best year ever. (Trade3)
• Establish corporate purchasing department: At Bantam Doubleday Dell established a supply management/corporate purchasing function resulting in $1 million in purchased goods and services reductions, and an additional $2 million targeted for FY 94/95 (since attained). (Trade9)
• Vendor capacity planning: Developed process and system to forecast and share required vendor capacity by service and commodity type. Forecast is generated monthly and provided to vendors through an online vendor portal. the ability to provide these forecasts was a key factor in vendor contract negotiations. (HE5)
• Strategic print sourcing: Developed system to automatically recommend offshore manufacturing, onshore manufacturing or POD based on recommended print quantity and manufacturing lead time. (HE9)
• Image permissions sourcing: Directed the team negotiating a contract with a major image source, substantially reducing the cost of images and simplifying the terms under which they could be used. This approach became the model used in all subsequent agreements and across other classes of Intellectual Property agreements. (HE15)
• Assessment development and production: Developed an approach to manage the development and production of psychometrically valid assessment items using a combination of vendor and internal staff. (HE19)
• Prepress vendor consolidation: Consolidated over 200 prepress vendors and freelancers into a core group of 5 preferred full service prepress vendors. This approach resulted in substantial ongoing cost savings, reduction in production schedules and reduction in staff required for supervision. (HE27)
• Full-service outsourcing: Implemented program to outsource all production activities, including production management, of low-value titles allowing production staff to focus on higher value or otherwise at-risk titles. (HE28)
• XBITS Implementation: Implemented the XBITS XML transaction standard among Cengage Learning and its paper and manufacturing suppliers. This reduced the need for multiple manual processes to record and verify details of purchasing, scheduling and specifications transactions. (HE29)
• China print sourcing: Increased offshoring of print activities to China, leading to $3.75mm reduction in annual manufacturing spend. (HE38)
• India content services outsourcing: Increased offshoring of composition and prepress services to ultimately include 69% of all pages, including both simple and complex work in higher education, trade and K12 markets. Along with offshored data conversion the project has resulted ina net 27% savings in plant spend. (HE39)