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Abstract
In 1997 Cessna Aircraft Co.'s Vice Chairman (now CEO) Gary Hay and President and COO, Charlie Johnson, announced plans to launch a new five-year supply chain management initiative. Making a conversion from a very traditional, conservative management structure to one that would make numerous and substantial changes in everything involved in purchasing, sourcing and supply chain management seemed for many to be an exercise in wishful thinking. Early on, says vice president of supply chain management Mike Katzorke, it was apparent that Cessna needed to start thinking in terms of moving away from its traditional functional orientation to one that stressed process. Strategic Sourcing Director Ron Nussle's first job at Cessna, was to lead the transition from a relatively weak functioning materials management system to a supply chain management system. The vehicle for making this transition would be full time cross functional commodity teams.