User's perspective of power supply procurement, an IBM case study

IBM spends more than 500 million dollars each year to procure power supplies and power components to support its computer business. Part of the spending goes for power supplies required for laptop, desktop, workstations, servers and mainframe computers and the rest is for UPS systems and power components used for embedded power systems. Every IBM division is responsible for meeting its power supply needs either by designing internally and then manufactured by outside sources or designed and manufactured externally. This paper provides an in-depth look of IBM's procurement process.