Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2. Is there potential to realise cost benefi ts from implementing a
common components procurement strategy?
3. Are there potential schedule benefi ts from securing early, consistent
and guaranteed supply?
4. Are there any potential benefi ts in the common maintenance of the
components during the life cycle of the facility?
5. Are there any overriding design requirements that might prevent
common supply?
The answers to these fi ve questions should enable drawing the conclu-
sion as to whether or not a common performance specifi cation alone
would be more suitable than a common component procurement strat-
egy. Whatever the result, it would inform the briefi ng process and, in
cases where no action was required, the assessment exercise would
nevertheless provide useful information and data. That information
could then be shared with design teams and other functions in the
delivery of their services.
Stage 3: The benefi ts of a common component purchasing strategy
A common component purchasing strategy does not increase or decrease
the total demand for building components or materials compared with
the same materials being purchased separately by different contractors.
However, a number of factors determine whether or not procuring
common elements on a strategic procurement basis could be helpful.
Firstly, owing to the size of very large programmes, if the level of
demand created by consolidating expenditure forms a signifi cant per-
centage of the output of a targeted sector or specifi c supplier through
the purchase by one organisation, leverage can be achieved to the benefi t
of the purchaser. However, regardless of a common component purchas-
ing strategy, if the aggregate demand from a large programme, together
with demand coming from quite separate projects outside the pro-
gramme, exceeds the capacity of the market, then total demand may
cause the market to overheat and prices to rise or production lead times
to extend, causing delays in supply.
Under these circumstances the client's programme delivery team may
well need to intervene to secure and coordinate the fl ow of common
components and ensure individual projects within a programme do not
interfere with each other by seeking to deliver their own projects in
isolation, regardless of their impact on the rest of the programme. This
is a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed.
