Procurement

About: Procurement is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25669 publications have been published within this topic receiving 334145 citations.

Automating Procurement Contracts in the Healthcare Supply Chain Using Blockchain Smart Contracts

Abstract: Effectively managing the healthcare supply chain (HCSC) process is crucial for healthcare providers not only during pandemics such as COVID-19 but also in their normal operations. Despite significant advances in new technologies and treatment options providers still suffer from poor procurement, ordering, forecasting, and distribution practices. Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) are an important stakeholder in HCSC and benefit providers with cost savings, volume discounts, and vendor selection. However, the current GPO contract process is time-consuming and lacks efficiency. Hence, our proposed solution integrates blockchain technology and decentralized storage to promote transparency, streamlines communication with stakeholders, and minimize the procurement timeline while avoiding pricing discrepancies and inaccuracies. Our solution connects all the stakeholders such as manufacturer, GPO, distributor, and provider using Ethereum network. In this paper, we propose a blockchain solution using smart contracts to automate the GPO contract process. We propose a generic framework for contracting process in the HCSC with detailed algorithms depicting various interactions among HCSC stakeholders. The smart contract code was developed and tested using Remix IDE and the code is publicly shared via Github. We discuss various security risks and present detailed cost analysis of various transactions incurred by the stakeholders. Our analysis demonstrates that the proposed blockchain-based solution is economically feasible as only a minimal transaction fee is expended by the stakeholders in the distributed network.

Profit Regulation of Defense Contractors and Prizes for Innovation

Abstract: This paper argues that regulatory institutions in defense procurement are (and necessarily must be) organized to create prizes for innovation in the form of positive economic profit on production contracts. This has a number of important policy implications. The values of the prizes on 12 major aerospace projects are estimated using stock market data and shown to be large.

Industrial Procurement Auctions

Abstract: As illustrated in the previous chapters, combinatorial auctions have successfully been applied to various application domains, such as the allocation of airspace system resources (Chapter 20), truckload transportation (Chapter 21) and bus routes (Chapter 22). Industrial procurement is potentially a huge application domain for combinatorial auctions, and it has turned into a topic of interest for software vendors and procurement managers in the B2B domain. A number of applications have been reported, but unfortunately, possibly because of efforts to protect proprietary information and competitive advantages, there is little documentation and public information on details of the design of combinatorial auctions in industrial procurement. The focus of this chapter is on describing current practice in this domain. We will also provide a case study of procurement auctions at Mars, Incorporated in order to illustrate the particularities in this field.

The performance impact of implementing Web-based e-procurement systems

Abstract: As Web-based e-procurement has become an important business avenue for the improvement of inter-organisational process efficiency, its implementation for purchasing direct materials nevertheless implies establishing collaboration mechanism among supply chain participants based on the adopted Internet based infrastructure. However, the value of Web-based procurement to the supply chain participants remains an arduous task for researchers. This study proposes a Web-based e-procurement impact model based on supply chain orientation, which includes both operational and strategic impacts. Specifically, the strategic dimension is about partner relationship, and the operational efficiency dimension includes supplier performance, buyer performance, process integration, and process automation. To prove the proposed model's contribution, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 137 firms in Taiwan who have all participated in e-procurement related projects. The results verify that the electronic execution of purchas...