Procurement in 21st century in the chemical, pharmaceutical and healthcare industry

Most companies in the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry have a procurement performance below average, which in turn means a disadvantage compared to other industries. These companies are not able to realize their existing cost reduction potentials in procurement. Additional short term potentials will not be fully exploited, for example these due to the financial crisis. A large fraction of companies from this industry has neither a relevant procurement strategy nor a procurement controlling. It is easy to see, that companies neglecting these basic elements have no chance to achieve a high procurement performance and optimize potentials. One specific problem is that the industry lacks of sufficient qualified procurement personnel. At the same time important positions in procurement departments, especially in strategic procurement, were vacant. In general procurement in the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry has a strong operational focus. Highest prioritized topics are analysis of prices and offers, calculation and planning of demands and management of supply shortages. In comparison to other industries each of these topics has relevance above-average. The major topics in strategic procurement are evaluation of suppliers, tendering and qualification of suppliers as well as searching for new suppliers. Especially tendering seems to be more relevant for companies in the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry than for companies in other industries. But still companies in the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry do not fully benefit from maximum cost reduction effect from tendering.<br

Motor control strategies differ between monoarticular and biarticular quadriceps muscles during bipedal squats

The interplay between biarticular and monoarticular muscles of the knee and hip joints during bipedal squats (SQBP ) requires adequate central-nervous control mechanisms to enable smooth and dynamic movements. Here, we investigated motor control between M. vastus medialis (VM), M. vastus lateralis (VL), and M. rectus femoris (RF) in 12 healthy male recreational athletes during SQBP with three load levels (50%, 62.5% & 75% of 3-repetition maximum) following a standardized strength training protocol (3 sets of 10 repetitions). To quantify differences in motor control mechanisms in both time and frequency domains, we analyzed (1) muscle covariation via correlation analyses, as well as (2) common neural input via intermuscular coherence (IMC) between RF, VM, and VL. Our results revealed significantly higher gamma IMC between VM-VL compared to RF-VL and RF-VM for both legs. Correlation analyses demonstrated significantly higher correlation coefficients during ascent periods compared to descent periods across all analyzed muscle pairs. However, no load-dependent modulation of motor control could be observed. Our study provides novel evidence that motor control during SQBP is characterized by differences in common input between biarticular and monoarticular muscles. Additionally, muscle activation patterns show higher similarity during ascent compared to descent periods. Future research should aim to validate and extend our observations as insights into the underlying control mechanisms offer the possibility for practical implications to optimize training concepts in elite sports and rehabilitation