Value for money, defined by HM Treasury as the optimum combination of whole life costs and quality to meet the

customers requirements

IF value for money is interpreted broadly, to include a range of criteria beyond cost and quality, then smaller, and especially local, firms may have an opportunity to exploit their relative strengths such as responsiveness and flexibility y To cite this article: Kim Loader (2007): The Challenge of Competitive Procurement: Value for Money Versus Small Business Support, Public Money & Management, 27:5, 307-314

Swedish defence industry company agree on the price of a defence system, their agreement is based on an estimation of costs, where indirect costs are assigned to chosen cost objects such as materials, manufacturing and engineering (Hedvall, 1999). Materials, manufacturing and engineering seem to be considered as cost drivers in defence procurement, an approach quite similar to the above mentioned historical cost accounting approach. Hence, a change of focus to analyse the effects of change transactions in defence procurement might result in increased cost-effectiveness Maria Hedvall (2004): Change as a cost driver in defence procurement, Defence and Peace Economics, 15:1, 101-108

the two papers by Brun, Corti and Cozzini and by Bu yu ko zkan focus on value assessment and appraisal of e-Procurement and e-Marketplaces, taking into account the high rate of failed investments in this overpromised area. Bu yu ko zkan suggests a framework to monitor and appraise the success of e-Marketplaces. To achieve this, he proposes a measure, namely the e-Marketplace success index (e-MSI) to quantify and benchmark the performance of e-Marketplaces Ilias P. Tatsiopoulos Professor of Operations Management (2004): Special issue editorial: purchasing and e-Procurement, Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations, 15:7, 631-633 A possible explanation to the failure of some e-Procurement projects is that their strategic relevance has been neglected leading to the absence of an effective evaluation of their impact on the purchasing process. For a firm to realize the maximum value-creating benefits form an e-Procurement strategy, the purchasing process must be evaluated to determine if it needs to be reengineered (Presutti 2003) Even if the operational effectiveness is expected to improve as a consequence of the e-Procurement implementation, this is not a sufficient condition for guaranteeing

the success of the investment, since strategic consequences have to be considered also Brun, D. Corti & S. Cozzini (2004): Value assessment of e-procurement projects: a modular methodology, Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations, 15:7, 742-760 Markensten and Artman (2004) and Artman and Markensten (2005) describe how the scenarios and personas used in requests for tenders helped the procuring organisation articulate their objectives and motives for developing a system. The prototype, scenarios and personas relate closely to the ideas of boundary objects (Leigh Star and Griesemer 1989, Skjetne 2005), specified in the context of IT-acquisitions by So kjer (2007). We have also framed the process of procuring an IT system from a design management and a service design perspective. From a design management point of view (Holmid et al. 2008; Holmlid 2009a, 2009b), there is little support to position Ann Lantz & Stefan Holmlid (2010): Interaction design in procurement: the view of procurers and interaction designers, CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, 6:1, 43-57 Chiadamrong (2003) has stated that there is a widespread belief that quality cost cannot be measured in practical terms because traditional cost accounting has not been adapted to quantify the value of quality. Indeed, the inadequacy of most cost-accounting systems in supplying quality-cost data in a suitable format is a significant problem for many companies today. The main reason for these difficulties is a lack of adequate methods for determining the financial consequences of poor quality (Chen & Yang, 2002). Another reason is that some proponents of quality control are themselves unwilling to encourage the measurement of quality costs (Chiadamrong, 2003). 176 C.-C. Yang Downloaded by The implementation of quality costing can produce significant benefits. The most important is that organizations are able to focus on areas that require improvement. Another important benefit is increased awareness (within the organization) of the potential effects of poor quality on overall business results (Prickett & Rapley, 2001 Ching-Chow Yang (2008): Improving the definition and quantification of quality costs, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 19:3, 175-191 The Spinning Mill under consideration here was unable to control the delay in procurement of materials (dyes and chemicals). Realizing the severity of the problem, the management of the company took up this study on quality improvement. This study was undertaken to explore the feasibility of reducing the delay in procurement of incoming materials using the six sigma methodology Prasun Das (2005): Reduction in delay in procurement of materials using Six Sigma philosophy, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 16:5, 645-656 Organisations need to benefit from the savings offered by e-procurement to stay competitive (Angeles and Nath 2007), while transferring supply management skills towards more strategic activities such as supplier integration and relationship management (Ogden et al. 2005, Pushmann and Alt 2005). Sharon Purchase & Ken Dooley (2010): The acceptance and use of eprocurement

systems, International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications: A Leading Journal of Supply Chain Management, 13:6, 459-473