Expediting

Expediting is a concept in purchasing and project management for securing the quality and timely delivery of goods and components.

The procurement department or an external expeditor controls the progress of manufacturing at the supplier concerning quality, packing, conformity with standards and set timelines. Thus the expeditor makes sure that the required goods arrive at the appointed date in the agreed quality at the agreed location.

Expediting is especially needed in large scale projects, for example, when a power plant or a refinery is erected, because of a delay caused by late delivery or inferior quality will get very expensive and could lead to unsatisfied clients, thus the loss of a project. To save these unnecessary costs and minimize potential risks, the supplier and customer may agree on the use of a third party expediter. These are experts from companies specializing in this field who keep track of the deadlines, supervise progress on site and check whether the components are properly packed. After inspection they notify the involved parties and banks about their findings; if everything is as agreed the bank will initiate the transfer of the price of the goods to the supplier. In this way, the supplier secures his liquidity as he is paid immediately when the components leave his factory (letter of credit) and the customer/bank knows that the goods will be delivered correctly. Expediting is relevant for many industries, such as the oil and gas industry, the general energy industry and the infrastructure industry.

Expediting exists in several levels:

As the different levels of expediting require different skills, specialists and laboratories, many third party expediters specialize in only one or several of these levels, while few offer expediting services on all levels.

Larger companies normally have their own expediters who can perform all four levels. Third parties then are only used when in-house capacity is overstretched or a neutral third party is needed. But In case of some big companies if the no. of project running same time, Big companies use third party expediters also.

Most of the time companies use third party inspector expediters who are responsible for inspection of critical items as well as expediting. In strict quality control conditions, those quality inspector expediters will give importance to quality work, rather than to expediting work, which may not be a useful technique to get expediting work completed.

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Wikipedia