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Demand for Purchasing Staff Increases 5 Sep 2011 | Adam

Leach

Vol. IX September 2011

Infrastructure Supply chains: Barriers and Opportunities:
Research Report [August 2011] by Department of Business Innovation and Skills, Govt. of United Kingdom
This report sets out the findings of a supply chain study covering five infrastructure sectors: transport, energy, digital communications, water and waste. The remit was to identify issues affecting the delivery of UK infrastructure, including barriers to innovation and the efficient operation of supply chains, and identify opportunities to remove those barriers and learn from good practice. The report presents evidence and views from respondents; it is not a statement of Government policy. 1. Section 1 describes the remit and scope of the work, together with the methodology that was used. This was based on direct engagement with business, so as to gain an unfiltered perspective of the influences and incentives that companies face. These interviews were supplemented by published sources. 2. It became clear from interviews with supply chain companies that barriers to infrastructure delivery occur to a different extent and with different consequences in each of the five sectors. They typically arise from the interaction of several factors for example, an innovation may be technically excellent but if lenders will only finance projects using established technology, then it will not be deployed. 3. The study identified five key issues that potentially affect supply chain performance. These are analyzed in Section 2 and the extent to which they constrain each sector is summarized below. Planning, which was cited as a factor by many respondents, is included as part of policy risk. 4. Section 3 contains short profiles of each sector, their strengths and weaknesses and the extent to which they are affected by the factors mentioned above. The findings in each case seek to identify the key issues and opportunities to be addressed by future policy as well as the potential to transfer good practice to other areas. 5. The findings of this report will inform Government policy including the next phase of the Growth Review announced in June 2011. Infrastructure supply chains: barriers and opportunities i. On finance, the Green Investment Bank was cited as an essential element that was not yet in place. The role of govern- Figure 1: Potential constraints on supply chain performance ment in de-risking projects so as to allow private finance to Happy Birthday !!! participate was repeatedly emphasized, with the risks involved ranging from technology to regulation to scaling-up from demonstrator facilities to commercial scale. Taxation of long -life assets and making the investment case to overseas funds were also seen as areas to address. ii. Sector-specific issues that were identified included: - Better integration and communications between clients, Tier 1 contractors and suppliers in the civil engineering and construction sector; - Successful and timely completion of the Electricity Market Reform1to provide the necessary certainty for invest tors; - Further reforms to procurement in the road and rail sectors, building on good practice introduced by the Highways Agency; - Better demand management and more selective use of technical standards in the procurement of railway rolling stock; - Bridging the funding gap for marine energy technologies; - Incentives for collaboration and innovation in the water sector; - Specialist funding provision for innovative waste treatment technologies that were unable to obtain bank lending; - Coordination between industry providers and the community to ensure that ICT infrastructure installed for the Olympic Games has lasting benefits. - Encouraging industry engagement with Government through the Offshore Transmission Coordination Group to address the challenges of building the offshore grid. iii. The Charter commitments2 agreed as part of the Infrastructure Cost Review address many of the behavioral and cultural aspects of the change that is needed. The emphasis on transparency and certainty as well as whole life outcomes and earlier supply chain involvement go to the heart of what is required. It is important to note that the Charter is even-handed as between government and industry; it was clear from this project that many of the barriers identified would require joint action from both private and public sector if they were to be overcome.

The demand for purchasing professionals increased by eight per cent in August, says recruitment firm Reed.co.uk. The Reed Job Index reported a rise of nine points to a score of 122, an eight per cent increase on July. The increase in demand for the sector contradicted findings for the rest of the job market, with the overall index remaining unchanged. In addition, the survey found that salaries being offered for jobs in the sector rose four per cent when compared with last month, again outperforming the overall job market, which has fallen by two per cent since July. Martin Warnes, managing director of reed.co.uk, said: Demand for purchasing professionals has bucked the trend. At a time when the job market is flat, procurement staff prove to be the exception with demand for their services up 8 per cent in August compared with July. Whats more, at a time when salaries for new jobs have declined to below the level they were 18 months ago, it is especially striking that salaries are rising for new procurement roles. He added: Employers have clearly recognised just how much they can gain by taking on new procurement talent at this time, in both short term savings and longterm strategic best value for their businesses.

Gue s issu t Edito e r of Sush : this il K uma r B Des ahl g Pay in & la al M y ou t: . M ada Edit n oria Sen l Te a Kal pati Ba am: esh Kum lagopal ar

Guest Editors Pick :

Asia Procurement News Round-up:

1. Survey identifies Vietnam as next sourcing destination 2. Baring all for locomotive buy- Pakistan 3. Indian PM calls for efficiency, econ- 4. Fairness through openness: China uses IT-enabled transparency to prevent corrupomy, competition and transparency in PPP - (excerpts from Inaugural speech) - tion

A survey by Barclays Capital has found that retailers and suppliers are increasingly looking towards Vietnam as a sourcing destination to avoid rising inflation in China. 13% of respondents to the survey said that they were looking to source from Vietnam, which represented the same proportion that identified China and was the only country to feature significantly. The survey also found that respondents were concerned about the rising costs in China with more than two-thirds of people identifying this as a concern although many retailers are still reluctant to move buying offices.

By: Kristie Thong, Global Pakistan - Pakistan Railways' (PR) tenders for the procurement of 150 locomotives will most likely to delayed, with the country's National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways deciding to involve a newly-formed technical committee to ensure transparency in its procurement process. The committee comprising six members will be tasked to review the evaluation criteria and terms and conditions for the procurement, with the pre-bid conference scheduled for 6 September and tenders likely to be opened on 24 September. PR have received 18 tenders so far, according to chairman of Railway Board Javed Iqbal. Last December, the Executive Committee of National Economic Council approved PR's procurement of 150 locomotives at Rs55 billion, which included foreign exchange component of Rs 40 billion.

Suresh Nambath, The Hindu :The Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which, among other things, supervises the implementation of anti-corruption measures, has now put in place an information technology-enabled system of openness and fairness in administration covering a range of issues from transparency in bidding for government projects to checking abuse of power and authority by officials at every level. Greater credibility Now, with e-sunshine, there is increase in bid participation, including from a wider geoFor a large road building programme, graphical area, greater credibility in judging efficiency, economy, competition and transparency are vital the touchstones that the qualification of the bids due to the openness of the online bidding process, and selfshould be used for judging our level of evident fairness because of standardisation of success. It is necessary to demonstrate procedures through an electronic, pre-set that the award, construction and operation model that leaves no scope for manually setof these projects is based on a fair and ting unfair competition terms. transparent approach which eliminates any Video monitoring stations suspicion of favouritism or what might be An electronic performance assessment system was introduced to improve governance described as crony capitalism.This is why we have been encouraging the use of through a performance index, real-time assessment and misconduct rectification. Under the standard documents and processes to streamline and expedite decision-making misconduct rectification system, warnings and alarms are sounded when a department is process by the concerned authorities in a behind schedule. manner that is fair, transparent and competitive. It gives me great pleasure to inaugurate this important Conference on Public-Private Partnership in the development of the National Highways From a rough figure of five hundred billion dollars in the Eleventh Five Year Plan, our aim is to raise the level of investment in the infrastructure to about one trillion dollars .

Happy Birthday !!! SRIVASTAVA, Anand Kumar Sep 05 Missing the point... Contract management disasters night plans. ANJUM, Khalid Bin Anjum'sSep 09 GUPTA, YashSep 14 11. You think Einstein would have been more effective if he had put his ideas into a "matrix model". BAHL, Sushil Kumar Sep 23 SANKARAVADIVELU, KumaraswamySep 27 MERZOUK, Ahmed-Sep 28

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