Procurement

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

Much of the construction industry improvement agenda has been focused on achieving integration of the design and construction processes.  However, the current approaches do not create an organizational framework to deal with the full integration of the supply chains for component based construction.  The real construction supply chain of clients, designers, specialist designers, specialist manufacturers, constructors and assemblers is not integrated into one group with a common purpose.  A major and ongoing challenge is to manage the essential grouping of contributors and participants, many of whom are involved for varying times on a relatively short term basis.  Grouping, by using Technology Clusters, addresses many of these challenges as it creates a commonly shared sub organization and culture that aids the removal of barriers to efficient and quality production. A Technology Cluster approach is a management philosophy and its principles can be applied whatever the procurement approach, although managed forms of procurement provide a better framework. Our studies of projects that have adopted a clustering approach has provided an understanding of the implementation issues of Technology Clusters and established the consequent changes in organizational design and management necessary to achieve full integration of the supply chain.

Special issue of the periodical Architectuur Lokaal, contains reports of the sessions at the 3e EU Aanbestedingendag, interviews, background articles and best practices of tender procedures and design competitions for architectural commisisons.

In the article the author assumes that the idea of smart specialization can stimulate the development of cluster initiatives  operating in the EU. In the first part, the author explains the essence of smart specialization concept. Then, in the following sections, he describes the process of identifying smart specialization in EU regions and collates the smart specialization concept with of some economic theories, particularly with M. Porter’s theory of industrial clusters.

The present paper aims at providing the reader with an overview of the procurement procedures under the current legal framework in the European Union. At first, they will be described and subsequently inherent advantages as well as disadvantages will be manifested. Having regard to the significant amount of discretion which the Public Service Directive leaves to Member States, it will be argued that national contracting authorities remain flexible when balancing between the principles of transparency and equal treatment on the one hand and conducting a fast and efficient procurement on the other. Moreover, a brief look will be taken at the criteria that public entities do and should use when determining which procedure to apply. In addition to that, various possible methods and techniques for conducting procurement procedures as provided by the Directive as well as their positive and negative aspects will be shortly assessed. Finally, the procedural framework of the new proposal for a Public Service Directive will be briefly evaluated in order to examine whether the inherent advantages and disadvantages of the current system have been adequately considered.

The e-scouting process of a product, whose features are known by catalogue, requires resources that are dedicated to supply and can result in an inefficient and ineffective process. Behavioural experiments were performed in order to simulate the selection process of a mass consumption product by a set of buyers. The experiment results show that if quantitative product features are limited in a range of variation, according to the decision making strategy, the results of human decision maker evaluation substantially coincide with those obtained by a virtual decision maker that follows the same strategy based on an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) [1]. On the contrary the difference among human and virtual decision makers is considerable when quantitative product characteristics are unknown or not strictly limited; as regards to the above mentioned scenario, the e-scouting process can be improved by using AHP methodology only if decision making process is automated.

"ABSTRACT
The research, based on an interdisciplinary literature review, highlights the strategic choices, various profiles and salient factors of electronic procurement (eprocurement).
The authors identify some factors which are important when adopting a strategic, rather than a tactical e-procurement perspective. The article proposes a broad framework for assessing the e-procurement performance relationship and
provides an understanding of the impact of e-procurement on organizational performance. The proposed research framework suggests that alignment among business strategy, e-procurement strategy, e-procurement tool, strategic IT capability and strategic typology have a positive influence on a company’s strategic performance.

Keywords: Supply chain management; information technology; e-commerce; implementation; purchasing; operations strategy; measurement"

A competitive bidding price depends on a number of bidders who enter the auction. It increases the intensity of competition and it reduces the purchasing cost. The number of bidders is important because the cost of bidding may become a sunk cost. The probability to win an auction depends on the expected number of bidders. This affects bidders' decisions on whether to bid or not to bid. The research uses several statistical analyses to examine the 195 bidding data collected from Public Works Department of Malaysia. It finds that the project value, the distance from the project site to supply source and state region affect the number of bidders.

"Hardly anybody outside a company knows its products and
processes better than its suppliers. Research confirms that
intensive integration of suppliers in the value creation process
positively influences the success of the company, particularly in
highly competitive industries. This is a result of the progressing
reduction in the depth of value creation of manufacturers and the
increasing transfer of know-how towards suppliers. In multilevel
business-to-business relationships, suppliers often have the best
or the only access and comprehensive knowledge about the end
users. Therefore, suppliers determine the scope of possible
innovations, which most companies do not actively use.

This unique volume provides a comprehensive overview of
theories, concepts and especially empirical results on open
innovation and the integration of suppliers. For this, authors from
all over the world present their latest research results offering
fascinating insights into collaborative approaches with suppliers."

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Key Highlights
(http://www.researchmoz.us/ict-procurement-trends-in-the-middle-east-enterprise-ict-investment-plans-to-2013-report.html)

    Kable's survey reveals that the majority of Middle Eastern enterprises prefer purchasing technologies through a local reseller, followed by direct from suppliers and national resellers. While 63% of organisations favour buying technologies from a local reseller, 31% prefer to buy directly from suppliers.
    The survey shows that most Middle Eastern enterprises state that the motive behind their IT investments is to better demonstrate the value of IT to the business. With an average rating of 3 on a scale of 1 to 4, this is widely regarded as the most important IT objective influencing Middle Eastern enterprises' IT investment decisions.
    Kable's survey reveals that 45% of respondents presently have a reasonably standards-based ICT infrastructure (with most of the ICT environment being standards based).
    With respect to the authority over signing off budgets, Middle Eastern enterprises rate CFOs as the most influential authority, with an average rating of X on a scale of 1 to 4, closely followed by CEOs.
    Ability to provide leading-edge technology is also considered important when choosing an ICT vendor, with an average rating of X on a scale of 1 to 4.

"

In the last decades of the XX Century the expansion in telecommunications urged the development of an innovative satellite network infrastructure. Satellite telecommunication-a network technology-presents public-good characteristic and high-cost and technological-risks. The case of the design of the Italian satellite telecommunication system consists in a peculiar case of public-private partnership (PPP). This paper compares the Sirio and Italsat satellites systems to highlight the differences in the partnership agreements between the public buyer and the firms involved. In both cases the government provided clear signals of market demand to spur innovative activity, however, contractual obligation proved decisive. In the latter case, the public financial support took the form of a purchase agreement of a service with specific requirements at a specific time in the future, creating incentives for innovation and on-time and on-budget implementation. A public agency then was created to coordinate the research efforts of different firms reducing cost and opportunistic threats.

"O presente artigo tem como objetivo identificar os benefícios que o Regime Diferenciado de Contratações Públicas – RDC trás para os procedimentos licitatórios ligados às obras e serviços de engenharia no âmbito do Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS. Ao longo do texto será exposto um breve histórico da tramitação legislativa e o potencial de expansão que é visto por alguns autores e as características principais que produziram a evolução do RDC em relação à Lei Geral de Licitações, a 8.666/93.
O RDC chegou trazendo alguns pontos polêmicos, mas entre os resultados obtidos promoveu aumento da competitividade entre os licitantes, melhorou a relação custos e benefícios para o setor público, assegurou isonomia entre os licitantes e a proposta mais vantajosa que não se traduza exclusivamente no preço. As novas experiências que irrigaram a Administração Pública demonstram vantagens relevantes que a sociedade demandava.
Para Alcançar o objetivo tomou-se a metodologia aplicada utilizando o método indutivo e bibliográfico, acessando de alguns livros, banco de teses e dissertações sobre o tema. Quanto ao tipo de pesquisa, foi utilizado a pesquisa qualitativa, descrevendo o RDC e o comportamento da pesquisa exploratória e bibliográfica a partir da observação da nova realidade produzida com as aplicações do RDC.
Palavras Chave: Licitações, RDC Eletrônico, comprasnet.
ABSTRACT:
This article aims to the benefits that unusual Procurement Regime – RDC in Brazil, back to the bidding procedures related to construction and engineering services under the Unified Health System - SUS. identify Throughout the text exposes a brief history of the legislative process and the potential for expansion that is seen by some authors and the main characteristics that produced the evolution of the DRC in relation to the General Procurement Law, the 8.666/93.
The RDC in Brazil, has arrived bringing some controversial points, but between the results obtained led to increase in competition among bidders, the relationship improved costs and benefits to the public sector, ensured equality among bidders and most advantageous proposal does not result solely on price. New experiences that irrigated Public Administration demonstrate relevant advantages that society demanded.
To achieve the goal it took the methodology and literature using the inductive method of accessing some books, stock theses and dissertations on the topic. Regarding the type of research, qualitative research was used, describing the RDC and exploratory behavior and literature from the observation of the new reality applications produced with the RDC.
Key words: Procurement, Electronic DRC Comprasnet.
The RDC in Brazil, has arrived bringing some controversial points, but between the results obtained led to increase in competition among bidders, the relationship improved costs and benefits to the public sector, ensured equality among bidders and most advantageous proposal does not result solely on price. New experiences that irrigated Public Administration demonstrate relevant advantages that society demanded.
To achieve the goal it took the methodology and literature using the inductive method of accessing some books, stock theses and dissertations on the topic. Regarding the type of research, qualitative research was used, describing the RDC and exploratory behavior and literature from the observation of the new reality applications produced with the RDC.
Key words: Procurement, Electronic DRC Comprasnet.
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