AUSTRALIA

– Ashley Carey , Group Procurement Manager

Group Procurement Manager

Since 2010 , Ashley Carey has led procurement at the Ausdrill Group and overseas all procurement related activities , direct materials purchasing as well as sourced products and services . Ashley started out as a hydraulic engineer , working primarily in the agricultural and mining industries where he was picked up by Ausdrill to focus on cost reductions in all technical categories . In a short time Ashley had worked his way through the organisation and now sits as the head of procurement for the group which has operations in 8 countries around the world . Ashley has overseen a dramatic transformation within the Ausdrill procurement function driven primarily by the most dramatic mining industry downturn in a generation . The transformation includes the implementation of a best of breed procure to pay system , moving toward a fully centralised procurement function , large scale operational cost reductions and the completion of a comprehensive supplier rationalisation project . Ausdrill is now well positioned as an industry leader on many fronts in the procurement space and with an upturn imminent can take full advantage of its new structure . when it came to procurement , every one of some 58 individuals scattered across Australia was entirely focused on his or her own cohort of users and suppliers . The supply chain function was entirely process driven : suppliers may have been taking advantage of that segregation and charging higher prices , and service levels were not as good as they might have been . “ Our first task was to understand what we were spending money on , and look at the total global spend of the group ,” he says .

Not surprisingly this exercise delivered sizeable savings . It also highlighted that suppliers were not always realising the spend level they anticipated . Capturing procurement data across the group began to give insight into the supplier community . www . ausdrill . com . au 59