Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
involved in programme opportunities. These potential barriers may be
caused by a lack of access to current and timely information on direct
opportunities, or by misunderstanding the timing of procurements. By
publicising a programme's procurements and giving details of their
progress as they develop, suppliers can effectively mobilise and respond
with quality submissions. The use of IT and the internet provides fi rms
with up-to-date access to enough basic information to enable them to
plan and allocate resources ahead of procurement commencement dates.
One-way supplier dialogue - Opportunity slides
London 2012 and Crossrail were keen to ensure the high visibility of
information relating to their respective pipelines for procurement across
their respective programmes. Opportunity slides were devised as simple
documents listing all direct procurements with basic information, which
included forecast contract notice publication dates, procurement status,
and the progress of procurements during the tender stage. The slides also
named short-listed tier 1 contractors, in order that tier 2 organisations
could pursue potential supply chain partnerships and market their goods
and services directly to the tenderers. Once awarded, the successful tier
1 organisations were listed with their agreed contact details. This
enabled the supply chain to make contact to understand the awarded
tier 1 contractors' emerging requirements and to explore any opportuni-
ties for working with them on the programme. By updating the oppor-
tunity slides regularly, the programme supply chain team were able to
keep all prospective suppliers up to date on the current status of their
procurements.
Opportunity slides are essentially a list of all the key programme
procurements, including the status of the procurement, a one-line
description of the package, a target date for awarding the contract and
an indication of a range of anticipated costs. Suppliers could use the
opportunity slides to track opportunities and respond either directly by
monitoring the appropriate channels, or indirectly by waiting for tender
lists to appear on the slides and then approaching tenderers directly.
Two-way supplier dialogue - Supplier registration and
pre-assessment questionnaires
To ascertain the appetite, capacity and hence capability of the market
to supply goods and services, a supplier registration process can be used.
