Procurement and Supply Management

COURSE OBJECTIVE
All organisations need inputs of goods and services from external suppliers or services providers. In this course we examine the developing role of the purchasing and supply function in managing and shipping inputs and outputs of companies, and address the ways in which the activity can contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation.

Purchasing is seen by many of today’s successful organisations as an activity of considerable strategic importance. The fact that the strategic role and contribution of purchasing and supply is well recognised in many leading commercial concerns and public institutions has meant that the strategic purchasing decisions may be taken by purchasing involvement at board level, rather than by a departmental manager. The ramifications of purchasing decisions on the operational processes may also be significant. Quantity discounts or optimal choice of transport may for example lead to gains in direct procurement expenses, but they may increase other cost in the supply chain (such as inventory). Such costs need to be traded off.

After successfully completing the course, students are able to:
• Apply multi-criteria optimization methods to decision making problems encountered in procurement and supply management
• Formulate and solve supplier selection problems by using multi-criteria optimization problems and Excel
• Apply basic statistical tools to analyze transport issues using your preferred software
• Explain and discuss the procurement function, its organization, and its main activities
• Discuss the main economic issues encountered in freight markets, and apply basic (statistical) tools to analyze freight markets

COURSE CONTENT
In this course we aim to discuss the management of purchasing, transport and supply activities. More specifically we aim at lecturing the following topics:
• sourcing strategies
• outsourcing and supply risk management
• public sector procurement
• transport procurement
• managing inventory
• contracting
• the structure of freight transport cost
• freight transport demand
• value of time and reliability; modal choice and route choice
• urban transport systems: congestion and reliability
• environmental effects of transport and corporate responsibility
• transport policy at local, national and EU levels

TEACHING METHODS
Lectures, Tutorials

TYPE OF ASSESSMENT
Written exam – Individual assessment (Interim)
Assignment(s) – Group assessment