RE: PO considered Harmful

[Bob Haugen <linkage@interaccess.com>]

Robert Moore wrote:
>Without sounding like a complete idiot, a more concise meaning of the term
>purchase order is needed.  

Actually, had I been smarter, I would have mentioned contracts and
contrasted them with (what I meant by) purchase orders.
Thanks for clarifying.

>For example, if you are referring to the type of
>purchase order formerly known as a "one shot" you are correct. The cost
>associated with this type of business transaction eliminated its usefulness
>in the late 80's.  

Yes, I was referring to the dreaded "one shot".  I agree with your
timing, too.

>Today, Long Term Agreements (LTAs) are established which
>provide the legal entity and relationship between two parties.  Usually the
>LTA, consists of thousands of line items covering the duration of a decade
>or more.  Not the type of transaction I would focus on.  The LTA purchase
>order "release mechanism" however maybe exactly the entity you are looking
>for.  These include some of the methods you have already stated,
>(electronic Kanban, automatic reorder, schedule release, etc.)  

My experience concurs that lightweight dependent demand 
mechanisms are always used in the context of some kind of
contractual relationship.

I worked on ERP systems for many years, and we always
differentiated purchase orders from blanket PO's and LTA's.
They were all different objects inside the systems.  That
is probably why, when I write "purchase order", I mean
that particular document with all its assorted baggage.

The fact that there are all those different mechanisms
suggests that there is a smaller core component that
just specifies the minimum set of properties to represent
a demand, which can be hooked to different authorization
objects.

>Invoices are obsolete and are only used to keep mentally challenged auditors
>happy.  They provide absolutely no business value.

No kidding!  Yet people still want them, and I bet that
they will end up in ebXML one way or another.

Thanks for the very clear feedback,
Bob Haugen