Enhancing Procurement Practices

Enhancing Procurement Practices is organised around four main points:
-overview and analysis of procurement principles,
-practical approach to drafting of solicitation and contract documents,
-conduct of procurement procedures,
-overview of the e-procurement arena.

Although the addressed procurement methods can be used on a wide scale, this book concentrates primarily on such cases when the subject of procurement is complex, or the solicited goods and services are relatively simple but the intended long-term relationship calls for a fairly conscious source selection. Project procurement, the most complicated form of buying civil engineering work, goods, and services, is thoroughly addressed.

Beyond the structured overview and comparative analysis of terminology and principles, the book describes such new concepts as single-source preference for simultaneous procurements, dual-term frame contract for parallel suppliers, and the use of semi-consolidated contract documents. Effective utilisation of theories boils down - among others - to a consistent set of procurement-related terms, proven methodology for drafting comprehensive solicitation documents and contracts, and practical details of communication with offerors.

(Digest from the Preface) I have made the following observations after reading the literature: – Harmonisation of the diverse pool of terms into a single "procurement dictionary" is desirable. – It makes sense to compare procurement procedures applied by international organisations. – For the contracting parties only the purchased/delivered part of the project is meaningful. – There is a clear gap for the description of comprehensive procurement approaches. – Practical details of the preparation and conduct of procurement procedures are rarely addressed. From among the above-mentioned missing links this book intends to address, two topics may require further explanation: project procurement and comprehensiveness of the solicitation documents. Procurement is only a facilitating knowledge area of project management, as determined in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) of the Project Management Institute (PMI). However, as the selected supplier is interested solely in delivering the contractual scope, I propose observing project procurement management also from a narrower angle, in parallel with the classical integral view. From the supplier’s point of view it does not matter how the overall objectives of the project will be met. Regarding the potential benefits of comprehensive solicitation documents, procurement principles, methods, and techniques are extremely well described in developed regions. In other areas procurement approaches are documented only in a superficial manner. In lack of comprehensive solicitation documents it would be time consuming to start everything from scratch, therefore a practical skeleton of medium complexity – what this book intends to be - may be useful.