Manufacturing Menu: Boost your Manufacturing Company with a Modern Supplier Portal

Manufacturing companies operate in a complex and dynamic market landscape. One of the significant challenges is effectively managing relationships with suppliers, especially when dealing with complex products requiring various raw materials, materials, or components. Prices and the availability of raw materials fluctuate, while suppliers come, go, or change.

About the Manufacturing Menu

A well-designed supplier portal significantly eases the spectrum of tasks and processes related to supplier management. That's why it holds a prominent place in Emixa's Manufacturing Menu, focusing on all production phases and domains within manufacturing companies. It provides practical solutions to enhance agility, innovation, and adaptability through Mendix's low-code. In this blog post, we delve deeper into the world of Supplier Portals.

This blog is part of the series: "Manufacturing Menu: Practical Solutions for the Manufacturing Industry". In our previous blog, we discussed the phases from 'Product Design' to 'Services,' showcasing how Mendix solutions support modern production companies in optimizing their business processes.

How a Modern Supplier Portal Helps

Having a smart, modern, and future-proof supplier portal offers numerous benefits. Here are the key advantages:

Centralized Information Provision:
A supplier portal allows you to centrally store all data crucial for both you and your suppliers. This eliminates the need to approach each supplier individually to find out their offerings and prices at a particular moment. Centralizing responses in one system facilitates easy comparison between different suppliers, aiding in smart purchasing decisions and fostering valuable collaborations. Orders, invoices, order history, and terms are also available in one central place, reducing potential disagreements between you and your suppliers.

Easy Filtering:
Once a supplier is registered, they can specify the services or products they offer or how they can assist your company in various situations. This enables quick and easy filtering of suppliers based on specific products or services needed.

Collaborate Better with Suppliers Using the Mendix Collaboration Portal

The Mendix Collaboration Portal is an excellent example of a versatile and user-friendly supplier portal. It brings a variety of processes under one roof, allowing collaboration with suppliers, customers, and other external parties.

This supplier portal offers several useful functionalities:

• Comprehensive onboarding capabilities for suppliers and customers.
• Suppliers can upload certificates and view evaluations.
• Engineers and designers can share projects and documentation, adding an extra dimension to the collaboration process.
• Facility for submitting digital invoices through optical character recognition (OCR technology).
• Business logic ensures that only valid transactions can be executed.

Customer Case BKD - Supplier Portal

The Bloembollenkeuringsdienst (BKD), established in 1923, is tasked with inspecting flower bulbs. In collaboration with the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), BKD conducts quality inspections, import and export inspections, and laboratory research. To modernize and improve interaction with growers, BKD replaced its outdated portal with a new Supplier Portal called 'MijnBKD,' with crucial support from Emixa using Mendix low-code.

This modern web application enables data reuse, allowing growers to register and certify more efficiently. Growers found a comprehensive solution in this portal, effortlessly managing all interactions with BKD, whether it be requests, registrations, results, or inspection progress. What made this story unique was the active involvement of various growers in developing the portal, ensuring it not only functioned well but also met the specific needs of flower bulb growers. The result was a fresh, modern application that not only reduced administrative burdens but also provided a clear overview of all crucial aspects of cultivation processes.

BKD also introduced a mobile application for faster and more efficient inspections. The transition to this new digital architecture positions BKD for future growth and further digitalization, replacing legacy software and advancing the company's digital transformation.

Ready to Benefit from a Robust Supplier Portal?

A good, modern, flexible, and future-proof supplier portal makes collaboration within supply chains more manageable and enjoyable. In a central environment, you and your suppliers can access the same accurate information and synchronize all activities meticulously. Looking to enhance your supplier portal? Curious about how we leverage our knowledge of low-code, Mendix, digital twinning, plant simulation, and Siemens technology can help you with this? Feel free to contact us to explore the possibilities.

Explore the Manufacturing Blog Series

This blog is part of the Manufacturing Menu blog series, which you can view here: 

1. The Manufacturing Menu
2. From Product Design to Services
3. Supplier Management
4. Warehousing & Logistics
5. Marketing & Sales
6. Safety, Health & Environment
7. Quality
8. Utilization & Performance
9. Finance, Control & Reporting
10. HR
11. IT, Data & Facilities