Impact of innovative procurement on agility within the construction industry

Abstract

The overall aim of the study is to examine the problems associated with the prevalent procurement routes, subsequent changes in supply chain management and introduction of alternative procurement routes which are innovative and agile in their nature. The trend in the UK seems to favour an integrated supply chain from the outset of a project, resulting into a transition from rigidity to agility within the development process. Client's role within the whole process is quite crucial and this paper shows the practical contribution of public sector clients in initiating as well as implementing innovative procurement routes that integrates the supply chain. The study is conducted via extensive literature review covering policy documents and a case study. The paper presents the techniques used by the public clients such as aggregation of demand to get aggregated supply result in agility and integration among supply chain participants and subcontractors along side the main contractors. The paper concludes that innovative procurement and supply chain integration have contributed towards agility of the involved participants within the construction industry in the detailed mentioned case study. The study can be beneficial to all the stakeholders especially the client in managing supply chain.