Is construction procurement a key to sustainable development?

Has specialization of professional roles obstructed the holistic approach and sustainable development? A preliminary survey in Botswana involving construction professionals found that existing procurement systems have not integrated the efforts of the different project participants and also fail to fulfil the expectations of the users. A holistic approach involving the re-integration of construction disciplines by applying new procurement methods is proposed. An integrated, holistic way of working could provide a number of synergies through the consideration of the building project as an entire system. The implications include better decision making upstream, more efficient use of resources and the mitigation of negative environmental effects downstream.

La specialisation professionnelle est-elle un obstacle a l'approche globale et au developpement durable? Une etude preliminaire menee au Botswana et portant sur les metiers de la construction a revele que les systemes d'approvisionnement actuels n'integrent pas les efforts des differents participants a un projet et ne repondent pas aux attentes des utilisateurs. Cet article propose une approche globale dont le succes repose sur la reintegration de ces metiers et sur de nouvelles methodes d'approvisionnement. Une methode de travail integree et holistique, ou un projet de construction serait considere comme un systeme complet, pourrait faire naitre un certain nombre de synergies. Cette hypothese exige un meilleur processus decisionnel en amont une utilisation plus efficace des ressources et l'attenuation des effets negatifs sur l'environnement en aval.     

中国联通采购管理系统应用分析

介绍中国联通采购管理系统建设面临的业务现状、问题、系统的解决方案,并对系统的应用价值进行了分析,提出未来发展的展望。     

Benchmarking a multi-access system

This paper describes an attempt to test the multi-access capabilities of three widely differing systems. Some of the difficulties encountered in trying to find a common approach are detailed.     

减少海外EPC项目现场紧急采购的对策

研究海外EPC项目现场施工过程中发生的因设备材料与原设计赊购不符而产生的现场紧急采购,并提出了减少这种紧急采购量的方法。通过自身执行项目的经验,分析了海外EPC项目采购流程中的几个重要环节,包括请购文件的准备、生产厂家选择、设备材料的制造以及施工现场的材料管理,从而找出导致最终交付施工的设备材料与原设计不符的主要原因,并根据这些原因,提出了可以应用在将来的EPC项目管理中的解决方案。     

A life cycle approach to Green Public Procurement of building materials and elements: A case study on windows

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a significant policy tool for reducing the environmental impacts of services and products throughout their whole life cycle. Scientific and easily verifiable environmental criteria, based on a life cycle approach, should be developed and used within procurement procedures. In this paper, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to wood windows showing how it can support the criteria definition. After a foreword on GPP development in Italy, the evaluation features of the environmental performances of building materials and components are outlined. The LCA case study is then presented, describing the use of the analysis results to define the environmental criteria. LCA allowed to identify the main impacts and the critical processes of the window life cycle, giving a scientific framework to discuss GPP criteria with manufacturers associations and stakeholders. Nevertheless, it couldn’t help neither in identifying detailed criteria for GPP nor to define numerical thresholds to be used as reference in procurement procedures. The appropriate strategies should be selected taking into account the technical status of the market, the standard development and the voluntary industry commitments, involving manufacturers associations. Finally, some elements to develop a structured approach for GPP of construction materials are presented.     

Energy conservation regulations: Impacts on design and procurement of low energy buildings

To reduce the substantial contribution of the built environment to energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, the new ‘Part L: Conservation of Fuel and Power’ of the Building Regulations for England and Wales came into force in April, 2006. As a result, the design of all new-build and refurbished buildings must comply with ‘Target Carbon Emissions Rates’. Apart from the purely practical implications of compliance, the new Part L has prompted interesting questions concerning procurement and the impact on design and construction teams.     

Designing a secure e-tender submission protocol

This paper investigates the fundamental difference between a simple e-tender box and a traditional physical tender box, and highlights a series of security traps created by the functional differences. Based on our findings, we have defined the security requirements for an e-tender submission protocol. We also discuss functional limitations of cryptographic technologies. As a result, two secure e-tender submission protocols are proposed which enable a secure e-tender submission. Protocols are assumed to run under the condition that all tendering parties (principal and tenderers) are dishonest players. Our informal and formal security analysis show that these protocols meet their security goals under well known collusion scenarios. Because security is a process not a product, our approach will have broad industry application for developing secure electronic business processes in areas other than e-tendering.

Procuring open systems

The objective of this two part presentation by CCTA is to illustrate the problems faced today by purchasers who wish to consider products which comply with Standards for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) - that is, IT products having the capability to communicate and interwork with each other, irrespective of manufacturer, through OSI technology. In particular, the aim is to show that the OSI Standards as published so far do not meet the needs of the average purchaser and meanwhile only the most sophisticated of organisations have the technical ability to “procure open systems” successfully.

The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) is a part of HM Treasury. It is responsible for helping UK government departments with the development and use of information technology (IT) concentrating on matters of strategic concern and on services which are best handled centrally; it currently handles procurements of goods and services worth approximately 250 million pounds sterling per annum. In October 1984, CCTA issued a Statement of Intent concerning OSI on behalf of central government departments.     

Gates’ Bidding Model

In evaluating closed-bid competitive procurement auctions, the most crucial issue is to determine the probability of placing a winning bid for a given markup level. There has long been disagreement on how this should be done due to the absence of a mathematical derivation of one of the main evaluation techniques—Gates’ method. Gates’ method is shown in this paper to be valid if, and only if, bids can be described using the proportional hazards family of statistical distributions. When markup values are included in Gates’ method, it is seen that the underlying statistical distribution required for the method to work is closely related to the Weibull distribution. Likelihood based methods are suggested for parameter estimation and an illustrative example is provided by analysis of Shaffer and Micheau's 1971 construction contract bidding data.