Procurement

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

Combinatorial Auctions in Procurement

Abstract: Making the “right” pricing decision in sales or procurement is a complex task. While the types of pricing policies/methods used in the exchange of goods and services vary greatly, we can divide these mechanisms under two broad categories: posted price mechanisms and price discovery mechanisms. Under a posted price mechanism, a good is sold at a take-it-or-leave-it price determined by the seller. A posted price can be dynamic, i.e., the seller may offer different prices to different customers (customized prices) or change prices dynamically over time (intertemporal prices). In a price discovery mechanism, prices are determined via a bidding process.

Reactive power pricing: a conceptual framework for remuneration and charging procedures

Abstract: A new electrical sector regulation is being implemented in different countries all over the world. The new regulation stresses the role of competitive markets for the procurement and remuneration of ancillary services. Among these services stand the ones associated with reactive power supply and transmission network voltage control in order to maintain the required system security levels. The object of this paper is twofold. On one hand, reactive power supply and voltage control services, which today are bundled, are decomposed in two types: (i) voltage profile management and reactive dispatch, and (ii) voltage regulation. A theoretical approach based on marginal pricing is proposed in order to clarify the principles to remunerate the suppliers and to charge the consumers of these services. On the other hand, a practical organization of reactive supply and voltage service markets is presented to be implemented in a competitive environment.

A Service Quality Index for Area-wide Contract Performance Assessment

Abstract: Over the past two decades the bus industry in many countries has been involved in a process of economic deregulation, competitive regulation, and privatisation. Among the policy practices designed to increase competition, competitive tendering represents a popular policy intervention. The focus of competitive tendering has been essentially on cost efficiency and cost effectiveness; regulators have hitherto been unsuccessful in developing a robust specification of service quality levels. In this paper the authors propose a method of filling in a missing link in the specification of contract performance ? service effectiveness ? which measures the (generalised) effectiveness of a service in satisfying passengers across a set of relevant dimensions that capture customer satisfaction.

An integrated approach to forecasting and inventory management of short life cycle products

Abstract: This research is an attempt to provide an integrated framework for forecasting and inventory management of short life cycle products. Short product life cycles are becoming increasingly common in several consumer and industrial goods industries. Management of the marketing and production functions for these products presents significantly different challenges than those for longer lasting products. The timing of decisions and the information available for decision making are both affected by the shortened life cycles. The literature on forecasting and inventory management does not adequately address issues relating to short life cycle products. In the first part of this research we develop growth models that can be used to obtain accurate monthly forecasts for the entire life cycle of the product. The models avoid the limiting data requirements of traditional methods. Instead, they extract relevant information from past product histories and use the information on total life cycle sales and the peak sales timing. Empirical testing, on disguised real life data from a PC Manufacturer, validates these models. Model fit and forecast comparisons with traditional approaches show that the proposed models outperform these approaches. Next, we model the inventory management problem for the short life cycle environment. The uncertainty in demand is modeled through the uncertainty in the realized values of the parameters of the forecasting model. The high cost of terminal inventory, shortages and rapidly changing procurement costs are all included in the model. Extensions to the basic model are also developed. Using optimal control theory, we derive a solution that provides valuable information on procurement cutoff time and terminal service levels. A detailed real life example explains the characteristics of the policy and its relevance in decision making. Many of the issues covered in the models were brought to our attention while implementing a forecasting model at a Personal Computer manufacturer. The benchmark monthly forecasts and the associated inventory levels provide information that can be very helpful in planning and controlling marketing, sales and production. By raising some issues this research also provides useful topics for further research in the area of management of short life cycle products.