Direct materials: how it works and what to require
Direct-material procurement carries production consequences that indirect buying does not. Proconomy brings approved-source status, supplier quality standing, documentation requirements and change context into sourcing and purchasing decisions, and runs supplier qualification, corrective action and change workflows on the same governed platform.
Engineering controls the part. Procurement carries the consequence.
What changes when the specification is not yours to move.
New part introduction
- Sourcing against a drawing and specification
- Supplier capability and capacity assessment
- Tooling, NRE and capital contribution
- Sample and prototype supply
- Part approval submission and review
- Run-at-rate verification before launch
Running supply
- Schedule call-offs against a framework
- Price mechanisms and index reviews
- Capacity commitments by period
- Dual-source volume allocation
- Obsolescence and last-time-buy
- Supplier performance against delivery
Change
- Engineering change requiring re-sourcing
- Supplier process or material change
- Sub-tier change notified late
- Site relocation or equipment move
- Substitution requests under allocation
- Re-qualification triggered by any of these
When it goes wrong
- Part approval returned against a superseded drawing
- Capacity shortfall notified by email to one planner
- Corrective action stalled between stages
- Unapproved substitution reaching the line
- Single-source exposure discovered late
- Quality standing not in the room at award
Six things governed. PLM and ERP untouched.
Where the boundary sits between engineering data and procurement decisions.
| Mechanism | What it has to do |
|---|---|
| Engineering context read, not duplicated | Part, drawing and change data stay in PLM and ERP. Proconomy reads them so sourcing decisions follow engineering rather than lagging it. |
| Qualification enforced at purchase | Approved-source status, scoped by entity and part, is checked when the order is raised, not confirmed afterwards from a list. |
| Part approval as a governed sequence | Submission, review, evidence and decision held against the part and programme, with named owners and retained evidence. |
| Change routed for assessment | Supplier and engineering changes reach procurement, quality and engineering before the change takes effect. |
| Quality standing inside the commercial decision | Open corrective actions and performance history are visible to the person making the next award. |
| Capacity commitments tracked | Supplier acknowledgements against committed volume, with shortfalls raised as exceptions rather than discovered at delivery. |
A description of what the practice requires, not a feature list.
One direct engine. Four evidence regimes.
What has to be held against the part, by industry.
Automotive
APQP milestones and PPAP submission levels held against the programme plan, with tier-two change visibility.
Aerospace and defence
First-article inspection and approved-supplier-list constraint, with every exception carrying named authority.
Medical devices
Device-family-scoped approval and quality-agreement obligations, with change assessed before effect.
Semiconductor and OSAT
Multi-stage process qualification with evidence per gate and lot traceability held against the purchase.
Five questions. Run on your own workflow.
Each takes minutes and none can be prepared for.
- Ask them to run one of your workflows in the session, on your policy and your thresholds.
- Ask what happens when reality varies from the happy path — that is where most of your work lives.
- Ask which decisions return to a person, and confirm those checkpoints cannot be configured away.
- Ask what the system did without a person overnight, and see the record.
- Ask what they would advise you not to do first.
Definitions. Asked and answered.
No. Bill-of-material and part master data remain in your PLM and ERP. Proconomy uses that context to govern sourcing, qualification, change and purchasing decisions, and does not claim depth it has not demonstrated.
The process structure is shared, but eligibility, evaluation and governance differ. Direct events weight approved-source status, quality standing, capacity and change sensitivity alongside commercial terms.
Yes. Eligibility is enforced at invitation and at purchase under the rules you configure. An exception requires an authorised approval and is recorded.
The notification opens a governed assessment routed to procurement, quality and engineering owners. Whether the change is accepted, and what re-qualification it triggers, remains a human decision.
They run as governed sourcing and purchasing workflows with the relevant approval and follow-up rules. The platform tracks the coordination; commercial and planning judgement stays with your team.
Direct materials procurement covers the components, raw materials and sub-assemblies that go into the product being manufactured. It differs from indirect procurement because the specification is engineering-controlled, suppliers are formally qualified, and supply failure stops production.
Direct procurement buys what goes into the product; indirect buys what the business needs to operate. Direct is characterised by qualification, part approval, engineering change and traceability. Indirect is characterised by volume, variety and long-tail supplier fragmentation.
No. Bills of material and product configuration stay in your PLM and ERP. Proconomy reads that context to govern the sourcing, supplier and purchasing decisions around it.