By Mare Allen
Welcome back! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Summer, even with today's busy work schedule. Hopefully you were able to enjoy some relaxation and rest with family and friends.

This is the start of our 1999-2000 year and we hope to bring you new and exciting events and speakers throughout the year. Plan now to attend the dinner meeting on September 8^th for our Plant Tour of the U of A Mirror Lab.

The names of the new Board of Directors, Officers and Chairs can be found on the back of this and all newsletters. We really do hope everyone takes advantage of the professional people you have serving you this year. Be sure to visit our Web site too for valuable information, and let me know if you have any suggestions for programs or other activities for the coming year. This is your organization.

Some of us attended the annual Summer workshop this year, which was held in Oakland, CA. This year Districts I, XI, & XII were combined together for this joint meeting/workshop. District I is: Arizona, California, Nevada & Utah. District XI is Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. District XII is National Purchasing Institute and Rural Electric Utilities.

Attending these Summer workshops are very vital to you as members and our affiliate as well. By listening and learning how to bring the members more information on educational and professional programs, seminars and workshops, we will accomplish our goals set this year for you NAPM-SA members. We hope you do plan on attending our Educational Resource classes and dinner meetings every second Wednesday of the month. We will be bringing you information monthly in the newsletter. Start this year off right, ask yourself a question:
"Why did you become an NAPM-SA member?"

1. Increase your education
2. Resources
3. Network
4. Professionalism
5. Expand your horizon
6. Job Opportunities

By Peter Burgard
The Steward Observatory Mirror Lab located on the University of Arizona campus has invited the membership of NAPM-SA to tour the Mirror Lab facility as a part of the September Membership Meeting the evening of September 8, 1999. The time is 6:00 p.m. The location is the Procurement & Contracting Services Department located @ 5^th Street and Mountain Avenue.

Dinner will be provided by the Sausage Deli and served at the Purchasing Office. Patrick McGuire, a doctoral student in Adaptive Optics, will join us for dinner with a brief talk and short video. After dinner we will walk to the Mirror Lab facility located beneath Arizona Stadium. The tour is expected to end by 7:30 p.m. The cost of dinner will be $8.00.

Dinner: please RSVP via fax to Pete Burgard, Senior Buyer, Procurement & Contracting Services @ (520) 621-5179. Dinner will be sandwich trays, chips, brownies, cookies and soft drinks. Bring a guest if you wish.

Directions: exit 6^th Street at the light and go North on Highland. Travel one block on Highland take the first left on to 5^th Street and go one block and the street ends at our building. The parking lot is one the South side.

The Mirror Lab: the University Steward Observatory Mirror Lab engineers and scientists have pioneered the development of giant lightweight mirrors. Honeycombed inside and cast in large rotating furnaces they are spun into shape. Currently two 8.4 meter mirrors are under development for installation in the large binocular telescope located on Mt. Graham. Roger Angel, the University the faculty responsible for the implementation of the Mirror Lab, has stated when the large binocular telescope comes on line, "we will find life out there". Already this technology is being eclipsed as the University competes to receive the award to develop the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) which will replace the Hubble Telescope. It will be an interesting 90 minutes that will give you in inside look into the technology currently being developed which will allow for the exploration of deep space.

Name ___________________________________________________________________________

Company _______________________________________________________________________

# Attending_________________________

Phone #____________________________

Preferred Entree(s) ________________________________________________________________

Notes from the District Council Meeting

By Ralph L. Long, C.P.M
Summer is over and its time to get back to work, ha, as if we didn't do anything this Summer. Well anyway it makes some of us feel better that we survived another Summer and the heat will go away for a while. Several of NAPM-SA Board members spent a great weekend at a Summer Workshop where they prepared for the coming year. Scott Oldendorph sat in for me at the District Council Meeting held in conjunction with the workshop and brought back lots of notes to pass on to those of us that didn't make the trip. NAPM National is on the move again and this time in a serious manner. It will effect all of us and the organization. The changes are a result of the Governance Study that has been going on since early 1998. The final report was presented and accepted by the National Board in May 1999. It was reviewed at the Summer Workshops and comments encouraged. The comments were addressed to the Board at their August meeting. The District Councils will be briefed on any changes and ask to vote on recommending a by-law change to implement the Study's recommendations in October. Then there will be a membership vote in April, 2000. If you're still with me through all that administrative stuff let me summarize some of the changes.

The National Board will no longer be representatives of Members but will be representatives selected based on their leadership and technical qualities, similar to most corporations. There will no longer be a President elected from the membership but the National Executive Vice President will act as the CEO. District representation will go away and there will be four regions formed. The DNA position at local affiliates will be deleted. A limited number of members will be elected to represent the Region on national-level in something called the Affiliate Support Council, the recommendation is one member from each region and five members at-large from the affiliates in the Region. That figures out to six members per Region with an average of 15 affiliates per Region. Another recommendation is the one member one vote proposal. Currently the DNA votes based on the number of members in the affiliate and places the vote in a block. This provides the DNA's the ability to get together and carry some weight in the process. A single vote per member is going to make it very difficult to sway any vote in a direction other than the way National wants.

Copies of the entire Governance report and recommendations will be available at the September Dinner Meeting for your review. Please pick up a copy and let me know your feelings. If your not concerned, let me know that too. I still don't trust the National leadership after the APP, dues increase, and sites of the Board meetings. Oh by the way the Board has recommended a dues DECREASE… that after threats to go bankrupt if the increase wasn't approved!!!! Must be better management???? The decrease recommended is $15.00 per year. More about that later. If you want to talk about any of this in more detail, find any NAPM-SA Board member. See you at the Dinner meeting September 8^th.

On September 30^th we will kick off the 1999-2000 Satellite Seminar Series We will be presenting five seminars this season all of which provide a wealth of information for a very reasonable price.

Supply Chain Management - Linking Purchasing with Customer Values, Technology, and Shareholder Value
September 30, 1999
By incorporating practices that connect purchasing with customer and shareholder values, your supply management department can demonstrate significant added value to your organization's bottom line. This interactive satellite seminar will build on the importance of effective supplier relationships and communication to explain how effective supply chain management strategies and emerging technologies can strengthen your supply chain. Topics to be addressed include:

The following lists of purchasing executives' top concerns in managing Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance in their supply chains are provided as a quick overview of key findings and a reference guide for decision makers responsible for this effort in their organizations.
The Ten Top Concerns

1. Awareness and Urgency
   The level of awareness of potential problems and the sense of urgency in preventing them vary widely, both within organizations and throughout their supplier bases. They tend to be highest among major American companies, drop to the level of ignorance and unpreparedness among small suppliers, and reach only modest levels among many foreign suppliers.
2. Divided Responsibility
   The task of rallying the troops to conquer the millennium bug is greatly complicated by the fact that responsibility for Y2K issues is divided among many people, levels and functions throughout an organization. The people involved may share vastly differing objectives, requirements, perspectives, and time schedules.
3. Commitment and Resources
   Obtaining commitment from top management and from all employees throughout an organization to the task of achieving Y2K compliance in the supply chain represents a significant challenge. Even if support and the necessary funding are provided, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find appropriately qualified people to master the task at hand.
4. Limited Supplier Cooperation
   Suppliers are often less than enthusiastic about cooperating with a particular customer organization on its Y2K compliance effort, having received thousands of such requests from their customer base and being overwhelmed by their sheer number. Furthermore, their legal departments warn that anything they say or do with regard to Y2K compliance may be interpreted as warranties and thus create additional liability. Overseas, suppliers are often also preoccupied with other matters, such as the economic crisis in Asia or the introduction of the new European currency, the Euro. Consequently, it is difficult to get suppliers to respond to questionnaires, undertake a credible compliance effort, and sign compliance statements.
5. Installed Equipment
   Ascertaining whether an organization's embedded equipment base is Y2K compliant poses a major challenge. These pieces of equipment were often installed years or even decades ago, and records about their purchase history and technical specifications are sketchy at best. Frequently, the sellers themselves do not know whether the products they sold years ago contain date-sensitive controls; in other instances, the original manufacturers cannot be found. Even if problems can be clearly identified, software fixes or updated chips may be difficult to obtain or extremely costly. In such cases, replacement of entire machines may be the only viable option.
6. International Coordination
   While it is difficult enough to coordinate Y2K compliance efforts across different functions and locations domestically, the task of orchestrating compliance activities across multiple countries around the world is vastly more complex. It involves different languages, mindsets, time zones, and economic conditions, all of which affect local priorities. Success rates will also vary based on the sense of urgency and commitment to cooperation displayed by local suppliers.
7. Comprehensive Risk Assessment
   A vital step toward achieving Y2K compliance in an organization's supply chain is classifying purchased products and services, and thus their sellers, according to their potential impact on the organization. Essentially, the entire supplier base needs to be classified into risk levels from mission critical to incidental. This enables prioritization of compliance efforts.
8. Upstream Compliance
   Inasmuch as all organizations are links in supply chains, achieving Y2K compliance among their own suppliers, although challenging and rewarding, provides only limited reason for comfort.
   All of these suppliers are, in turn, dependent upon second- and third-tier suppliers whose  failure to comply can trigger a domino effect. The need to ensure suppliers' compliance efforts among their own supply bases expands the scope of the monitoring task considerably.
9. Contingency Planning
   As the dreaded deadline approaches, there will be no rest for the weary. In spite of their own and their suppliers' best efforts, organizations are likely to experience unforeseen failures that translate into supply disruptions. For these eventualities, contingency plans must be drawn up in advance. Some U.S. firms, for instance, have identified and qualified domestic backup suppliers in case their foreign suppliers are unable to ship products on time. Crisis management teams, notification chains, and disaster recovery plans need to be assembled in preparation for possible breakdowns in the supply chain.
10. Liability Exposure
    The concern about liability litigation related to Y2K compliance appears to be uniquely American. The possibility, if not the likelihood, of lawsuits prompts American firms to seek warranties and indemnification from suppliers for failures related to their products or their inability to perform. Some are notifying their suppliers that they do not consider Y2K compliance to fall under force majeure or non-performance provisions of contracts and thus expect them to perform as promised.