For any rational consumer who makes a purchasing decision for a product or service, total acquisition cost (TAC) is often part of the decision process. The goal is to obtain the best product or service with the least total costs for the long term. These kind of decisions happen every day in our daily life, from a decision whether we should buy energy saving light bulbs, to a more expensive but gas efficient car, or to a much more pricey new house but with much less requirement of future maintenance. In the business world, the theory is the same.
The definition of Total Acquisition Cost (TAC) can vary. But generally speaking, TAC in supply chain management should be the sum of total costs associated with receiving and using of a product or service, including ordering administration costs, ordering size costs, product costs, inbound shipping costs, assembling or conversion costs, quality costs and maintenance costs. Unfortunately, many companies tend to focus on product costs and quality costs as their procurement success measurement, which are obvious and easy to measure and capture, but overlook other hidden costs in TAC.
In this article, I will use two examples to explain where we can identify some hidden costs from total acquisition cost.
Logistics costs as hidden cost
This is a very straight forward case of embedded cost analysis for the company using vendor managed inventory (VMI). The analysis is simple but requires significant trust, transparency, and collaboration between the company and their suppliers. The suppliers are asked to breakdown cost components for VMI raw materials as below:
- Product costs
- Shipping costs
- Revolver hub costs (warehouse costs)
The embedded costs are hence broken down into different phases of the supply chain. In this case, the product cost is not the focus, but the logistics costs, which is hidden as part of the final pricing. After understanding the embedded logistics costs of raw materials, the Logistics team goes to its logistics providers for a quote, including shipping and warehousing, on the condition of meeting the same logistics service level used by suppliers. Once a lower logistics cost is identified, Procurement uses it as leverage to negotiate with suppliers. Suppliers need to either match the logistics costs or use the recommended 3PL by the company. This is a great example showing collaboration with suppliers for cost reduction. I believe many companies are conducting similar exercises to identify hidden logistics costs in their purchased materials.
Administration cost, order size costs as hidden costs
The costs of ordering administration, order size or assembling are difficult to capture and often not part of acquisition consideration. But those costs can become surprises some day and hurt the company bottom-line. It can potentially damage the relationship between suppliers and customers.
I’m using a case of pallet rentals in a logistics operation to illustrate those costs. A pallet is not a key material for many companies but it’s utilized in everyday operations to carry and ship important products. Pallet pooling is not a new concept. It allows companies to focus on their key supply chain activities and enjoy a lower logistics cost through renting pallets, instead of buying. The value proposition for this system is to decrease logistics costs, while supporting environmental sustainability.
It’s a great business model if there were no other hidden costs.
For any company using pallet pooling, the additional administration costs can come out of the blue. It’s not a simple activity of placing PO. It includes all other activities of “reporting, reconciling, correcting, and possibly conducting your own audit.” (Andrew Mosqueda, A Cost Analysis of Rental vs. White Wood Pallets). There is a lot of room for reporting errors or variables in a pooling system because pallets float from upstream 2nd or 3rd tiers of suppliers to downstream wholesales or retails. It can cause substantial effort for companies to maintain the program. If companies lose track of pallets because of shipping them to clients outside the rental network, the costs of “loss of equipment” will end up more than buying new pallets.
Ordering size requirement is another invisible cost in TAC. If there is a fuel surcharge for a full truck order or LTL surcharge, the inbound shipping cost per unit becomes higher for small batch orders. If companies choose to increase order sizes in order to lower surcharge costs per unit, inventory carrying costs will increase, such as storage, insurance, tax, and extra rental fee for this rental case.
It might be extreme to use a rental case to explain ordering related costs. The point is that intangible costs, such as ease of doing business, suppliers’ flexibility and services, are definitely part of total acquisition cost. In the long run, all of those hidden costs either pass along to consumers to decrease your competitiveness in the market, or hit bottom-line to reduce your profitability. Hence, for companies that would like to trim down total acquisition cost for their procurement, start with identifying hidden costs first before jumping into negotiate new pricing with suppliers.
