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The contribution of planning in facilitating an efficient and effective performance of public sector organizations is generally undisputed in both developed and developing countries. Its contribution can be at both central and local government levels of public sector management. This article examines the relationship between procurement planning and accountability of local government procurement systems in Uganda. The findings arose from a study that was conducted among 99 local government stakeholders selected from 11 Districts of Uganda, using a correlation research design. The data was analyzed using principal component factor analysis that aimed at identifying the critical components of procurement planning and accountable local governments systems in Uganda. Consequently, correlation analysis to establish the direction and magnitude to which the two variables were related was conducted and results are presented. The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between procurement planning and accountable local government procurement systems in Uganda. These results are compared to international research findings, and suggestions are offered for management, policy making, future research and efficient accountable local government operations.

Rockwell Automation's Allen-Bradley division was considering how to deal with the threat posed by national distributors in the maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) business for its industrial automation products. National distributors were consolidating the MRO distribution channel, offering national account customers an integrated multichannel solution for their MRO needs. Allen-Bradley had traditionally served its customers through high-touch, high-value-added local distributors, but this channel was inadequate for the demands of large MRO customers. An effort by Allen-Bradley and other manufacturers to create an industry-wide electronic sourcing consortium called SourceAlliance.com had failed. Now the company had to choose between redesigning its traditional channel by creating a virtual network of local distributors, striking an alliance with a national distributor, or withdrawing from the MRO market. It had to contend with difficult channel conflict issues in choosing a channel strategy.

To analyze the competitive strategy of a company serving the MRO market.

Gaining access to the cost savings and production efficiencies derived from lowering inventories in the supply chain is as vital for small‐to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as they are for larger manufacturing firms. Lean procurement as a concept has been advanced as a method for achieving this. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a method of addressing some of the critical barriers to implementing lean procurement methodologies in an SME environment through the application of procurement consolidation techniques.

First the relevant theoretical and practitioner literature is reviewed, a theoretical consolidation model is developed, and a worked example is presented.

The barriers face by SMEs trying to implement a lean procurement philosophy are significant. Low volumes, small lot sizes and high frequency purchases incur significant additional distribution costs. The paper argues that the use of a double freight consolidation model (DFCM) is useful to SMEs for maximising the trade‐offs between volume and frequency in an international supply chain.

Whilst this research suggests that SMEs can indeed use the DFCM for lean procurement, the next step is to apply the model in practice.

This paper synthesises consolidation modelling and lean procurement principles. This synthesis is further enhanced by applying a simulated example to the challenging SME environment. The application of the categorisation of both buyers and vendors to the consolidation model is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to better understand incentives and obstacles to consolidation of materials in humanitarian logistics.

This study uses a content analysis for its literature review method to code 87 articles related to supply chain and logistics and understand what are the incentives and obstacles to consolidation. It then discusses these issues from the point of view of humanitarian logistics.

Through the combination of a literature review and discussion, the framework developed in this conceptual paper identifies specific sources of delays and impediments to cooperation present in disaster response and development activities. These issues can be related to disaster type, the focus of the organization and the stakeholders as well as the resources required for consolidation themselves.

There are limitations to a conceptual paper, one being the lack of empirical proof for the findings. Another limitation is the use of coding; even though the coding grid was iterative to take into account the findings in the literature, there might still be shortcomings inherent to the categories.

This study offers a comprehensive review of consolidation activities in the last decades and offers an abstract model to further investigate consolidation in the context of humanitarian logistics.

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) initiative poses both significant opportunities and difficult challenges to the Malaysian SME communities. This study aims to investigate the preparedness of the local SMEs to compete and exploit opportunities in a post-AEC era. The aim is to contribute to existing literature and knowledge base on SMEs’ practices in the ASEAN region. The manufacturing sector has been selected for study, and the research efforts focus on procurement competencies. SME procurement practices in the two largest manufacturing sub-sectors in Malaysia – resource-based (RB) and electrical and electronics (E&E) – are explored.

Preparedness for AEC is gauged from four key performance areas summarized from literature review. Six key research activities are also identified for each performance area from the findings of previous works. Data were collected using a survey instrument and face-to-face interviews. Research methodology is primarily qualitative with quantitative data for robustness check.

The findings reveal peculiar procurement practices in Malaysian SME manufacturers that have significant implications on their preparedness to compete effectively post-AEC. The findings also highlighted the key influences that have contributed to variations in Malaysian SMEs’ attitude toward trade liberalization challenges and business process improvements in comparison with practices in foreign firms and more advanced economies.

Theoretical models have been adopted across business settings and environments by managers. This study reveals managerial practices in Malaysian SME manufacturers run counter to developed theories. The peculiarities and business attitudes of this resilient economic sector can be an important input to managerial decision-making when analyzing business activities in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of bottlenecks occurring when preparing for humanitarian operations in the humanitarian supply chain. The focus in this paper is set on the activities of aid supply procurement and aid consolidation into standardised deliveries of humanitarian aid.

The paper follows a qualitative case study and builds a theoretical bottleneck analysis framework, using, e.g. the theory of constraints as an important building block. The case study as such involves the IFRC supply chain.

The findings in the empirical study show that there is a need for long-term planning (practical and strategic planning) of the supply procurement, as well as organisational commitment in order to remove bottlenecks in a humanitarian operation.

The research framework built for the case study is applicable in similar future analyses of humanitarian supply chain operations and projects, as well as modifiable to other types of project or operation analyses.

This paper gives a wide perspective insight into constraining bottleneck areas as well as areas of improvement in disaster preparedness. Additionally the paper provides an applicable tool for humanitarian practitioners to use for analysing process bottlenecks, to decide on corrective actions.

The paper constructs a bottleneck analysis framework, which can be utilised beyond the humanitarian setting. Bottleneck analyses have not previously been conducted within the humanitarian context.

Competency frameworks can support public procurement capacity development and performance. However, literature on connecting professionalisation with national procurement contexts is limited. This paper aims to explain and conceptualise recent Romanian experience with developing bespoke competency frameworks at national level for public procurement that reflect the features of the Romanian public procurement system. The approach used could guide in broad-brush, mutatis mutandis, other (national) public procurement systems with comparable features, mainly those seeking a shift from a rather administrative function of public procurement towards a strategic function.

This case study reflects on the methodology used for analysing the Romanian public procurement environment in EU context to develop bespoke professionalisation instruments, and on ways to integrate competency management approaches in Romanian public procurement culture. That methodological mix has been mainly qualitative and constructionist, within an applied research approach. It combined desk research with empirical research and included legal research in this context.

A principled, methodological and pragmatic approach tailored to the procurement environment in question is essential for developing competency frameworks capable to resonate to and address the specific practical needs of that procurement system.

Competency frameworks can uphold societal objectives through public procurement.

Using valuable insights into the development of the Romanian public procurement competency frameworks, the paper provides a conceptual framework for instilling competency management approaches to public procurement professional development where the latter is governed by a rather distinct, public administration, paradigm. This conceptual framework can guide other public procurement systems and stimulate further research.

BP has interest in both upstream and downstream segments in over 100 countries worldwide. The United States subsidiary of BP is the nation's largest producer of oil and gas. This case focuses on the upstream procurement activities in the Gulf of Mexico.

This paper studied a bid generation problem in combinatorial transportation auctions that considered in-vehicle consolidations. The purpose of this paper seeks to establish mixed integer programming to the most profitable transportation task packages.

The authors proposes a mathematical model to identify the most profitable transportation task packages under vehicle capacity, flow balance and in-vehicle consolidation operational constraints, after which a two-phase heuristic algorithm was designed to solve the proposed model. In the first phase, a method was defined to compute bundle synergy, which was then combined with particle swarm optimization (PSO) to determine a satisfactory task package, and in the second phase, the PSO was adopted to program vehicle routings that considered in-vehicle consolidation.

Three numerical examples were given to analyze the effects of the proposed model and method, with the first two small-scale examples coming from the same data base and the third being a larger scale example. The results showed that: (1) the proposed model was able to find a satisfactory solution for the three numerical examples; (2) the computation time was significantly shorter than the accurate algorithm and (3) considering in-vehicle consolidations operations could increase the carrier profits.

The highlights of this paper are summarized as following: (1) it considers in-vehicle consolidation when generating bids to maximize profits; (2) it simultaneously identifies the most valuable lane packages and reconstructs vehicle routes and (3) proposes a simple but effective synergy-based method to solve the model.