Cooperative Success Stories:

Technology Procurement for Efficient Systems

Report for the CIB 99 Joint Triennial Symposium
“Customer satisfaction: A focus for research & practice”
Cape Town, South Africa, 6-10 September 1999
Hans Westling Promandat AB, Stockholm, Sweden

This document is available as a PDF file.

Abstract

Future-oriented buyers, who draw up challenging performance requirements and indicate a coming market, can stimulate manufacturers and contractors into developing and marketing new, and much more efficient, innovative solutions which meet customer satisfaction. In the construction and energy fields, there are already a number of examples with costs, or resource consumption, being halved by using the process cooperative or technology procurement. Creation of buyer groups, formulation of criteria and real purchasing, in combination with support and promotion activities, are important parts. After a tendering process, true collaborative work will take place, which, during the development, gives the suppliers and contractors access to early reactions from buyers and users in a kind of partnering arrangement. Examples of projects are lifts installed in existing buildings, housing appliances, ventilation, heating and lighting.

The importance of identifying key buyers, and the role of government (federal, regional and local) and other long-term customers as anchor buyers or intermediators, is stressed among the “lessons learned” from the process. Keywords: Buyer needs, buyer groups, collaboration, innovation, LCC, performance criteria, technology procurement.