Zero Base Pricing: Achieving World Class Competitiveness Through Reduced All-In-Costs

America's most successful companies have begun to redirect their product pricing and cost-cutting efforts from merely trying to get the best price from their suppliers to a more rigorous and all-emcompassing new concept called Zero Based Pricing.

This new approach, based on the all-in-costs approach to purchasing management, addresses all the phases of a product's manufacturing process, including it's design, the procurement of raw materials and/or the component parts or sub-assemblies, the labor and production equipment and plant used to manufacture it and its quality. The breadth of Zero Based Pricing even extends to the firm's relationships with it's unions and outside suppliers, the goal of which is to create a partnership to produce the best product at the lowest possible price.

David N. Burt is one of America's leading authorities in the fields of procurementand materials management. He has over thirty years of experience, including positions as the director of procurement for three organizations and as a consultant to several major corporations. Dr. Burt is Professor of Procurement at the University of San Diego, where he is Director of the Graduate Program in Procurement and of the Strategic Procurement Management Institute.

Warren E. Norquist is Vice-President of Materials Management for a leading manufacturing corporation where he is responsible for the purchasing of materials and services both in the United States and overseas. He received a B.S. degree in Engineering from the University of Michigan and a M.B.A. with Distinction from the Harvard Business School. Mr. Norquist is former President and past Chairman of the Certification Board of the National Association of Purchasing Management and was the 1988 recipient of the Edwards Medal awarded for outstanding leadership in the use of modern methods of quality control. Mr. Norquist is the creator of Zero Based Pricing and the co-author of "Creative Countertrade".

Jimmy Anklesaria, F.C.A., LL.B., is a faculty member of the Institute of Quality and Management in San Diego. He is a Visiting Professor of Procurement and Finance at the University of San Diego, where he has been named Outstanding Professor of the Year. In addition to his teaching, Mr. Anklesaria holds a law degree, an M.B.A. and is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.