Supply Chain Management for Infrastructure - Introduction

Infrastructure clients should actively manage their supply chains in order to obtain the best long term outcomes for both clients and suppliers.

Clients need to know that suppliers will bid sensibly for work, bring the right supplier chain parties together who possess strong capabilities and expertise to deliver work to best value and whole life outcomes.

Suppliers need continuity of work, and the ability to invest in skills, training and development. They need to update their working processes and invest in research that improves their productivity.

Bring this together are the procurement and bidding arrangements that govern the commissioning of work. These arrangements should reflect best practice developments in supply chain management across government and industry.

• Learn what key factors and best practices exist in ‘making a market’ between clients and their supply chain
• Common procurement pitfalls and benefits in adopting best practice
• A procurement framework ‘Sustainable Supply Chain’ and the thematic issues within this framework
• Some references and guidance for further exploration of this issue and deepening your knowledge

This is intended as a practitioner’s introduction for those of c. 5-10 years’ industrial experience seeking to examine the context of supply chain procurement and to deepen any existing knowledge.

The course should be of interest to people directly involved in buying or selling infrastructure work with c. 5 – 10 years’ industry experience:

• Client sponsors
• Procurement managers
• Project managers and PQS
• Suppliers
• Supplier bid managers
• Business developers
• QS
• Regulators
• Policy Makers

Those with few years’ experience in this area but who are looking to further their career in one of the areas above.

• Provide you with context and current thinking to set out why this topic is important and the main themes;
• Introducing the main parties and what is involved in clients ‘making a market’;
• Set out what makes a supply chain sustainable, the thematic issues and benefits of best practice adoption of supply chain techniques;
• 'Bringing the issues to life’ – exploring a case study example using Olympics 2012;
• Setting out the main learning points and opportunities for your own research, including outputs from our ‘Sustainable Supply Chain’ initiative.