Inquiries - Intergraph Smart Materials - Version 2020 (10.0) - Help - Hexagon PPM

Intergraph Smart Materials Classic Help (2020)

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Intergraph Smart Materials
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Smart Materials/Smart Reference Data Version
2020 (10.0)

Using inquiries is an essential part of the procurement process that allows a company to obtain competitive quotations for goods and services, as well as the best delivery schedules for a project.

For all blanket orders, it is essential that an inquiry be undertaken in order to register the list of prices for the commodity parts that appear on the blanket order. For agreements, inquiries can also be used to register the prices, deliveries, and so forth, although it is not mandatory to use inquiries in Smart Materials for normal agreements like purchase orders (PO) or subcontracts (SC). The use of inquiries for POs should reflect the company’s normal business practice.

The inquiry cycle in Smart Materials is always triggered and started by released requisitions coming from engineering. Engineering is able to send two different main types of requisitions to procurement:

  • Requisition for inquiry: These requisitions can be used to find prices for material but do not allow procurement to purchase this material. Requisitions for inquiry can be used to create inquiries, bid evaluation, select suppliers/subcontractors, and create a blanket order (BO)/master agreement (MA). A BO/MA can then later be used to transfer prices and conditions based on a new requisition for purchase from the blanket order into a new PO/SC. Or, you create a requisition for purchase from the inquiry, which will then be used to create the PO/SC.

  • Requisition for purchase: The requisition for purchase contains material/services that must be purchased by procurement according to the specification of material/service and the needed quantity at the planned time at the correct place. The requisition for purchase can be used to create inquiries, bid evaluation, award suppliers/subcontractors, and create PO/SCs, or it can be used to create PO/SCs directly without going through the inquiry cycle.

There are three revision types for requisitions:

  • Supplement: When creating a new requisition, it is always supplement 0 (zero). If an MTO job creates a new requisition, the procedure checks for existing supplements and creates the requisition with the next free supplement number. The next supplement may contain new material, or increased or reduced required quantity per item.

  • MR Rev: The document revision MR Rev starts with 0 (zero) for the first supplement if it is a requisition for purchase and starts with A if it is a requisition for inquiry only. Updating attached documents of the requisition will directly change the MR Rev. Since the requisition itself is also a document, incrementing the SR Rev directly increments also the MR Rev.

  • SR Rev: The material revision SR Rev starts with 0 (zero) for the first supplement if it is a requisition for purchase and starts with A if it is a requisition for inquiry only. The SR Rev is incremented if a line item exists that has an increased quantity <> 0 or an attached VDR has been changed/updated/deleted.

The three revisions allow you to easily recognize the status of modification done on a requisition.

Supplement

MR Rev

SR Rev

Action

0

0

0

New requisition.

1

1 (A)

1 (A)

New supplement with new quantities and maybe also changed documents and VDRs.

2

1 (A)

1 (A)

Forced supplement with no modifications (this should occur in procurement only as an exception).

2

2 (B)

1 (A)

Modifications in documents only.

2

2 (B)

2 (B)

VDR or quantity changes.

The required steps for the inquiry workflow include:

  • Assign buyer and create inquiry

  • Assign bidders to inquiry

  • Issue inquiry (RfQ) to bidders via paper / electronically

  • Receive quotes from bidders via paper / electronically

  • Perform technical evaluation

  • Perform commercial evaluation

  • Awarding