Collaborative Procurement Porgamme set to Improve Workplace Productivity

The Australian National Higher Education Procurement Benchmarking Programme (ANHEPBP) which launched in February 2007, aims to improve efficiencies in strategic procurement in universities.

A total 28 Australian universities are participating in this significant collaborative procurement benchmarking venture over the next three years with the support of DEST under the Workplace Productivity Funding initiative. This is the largest collaborative initiative amongst Australian universities in recent years, with benchmarking advisory groups being drawn from participating universities to scope 12 categories of goods and services. A further three sub-projects will be devoted to benchmarking the procurement function in participating universities.

The University of Newcastle applied for WPP funding on behalf of the sector and its Project Management Partner, Higher Ed Services. HES is a not for profit company owned by Universities Australia. HES developed the initiative with the Australian Universities Procurement Consortium (AUPC) and Purchasing Index. The AUPC is a voluntary group seeking improvement in procurement practices and aggregated purchasing. All universities are welcome to participate in AUPC initiatives. The AUPC Executive Committee comprises volunteer representatives from eight universities and provides direction for the ANHEPBP. HES currently provides funding for the Executive Committee's other activities.

In 2005, Purchasing Index, conducted a pilot benchmarking project in association with HES and five universities, which resulted in the identification of significant savings opportunities for each of the universities and led to the development of the national collaborative initiative. The University of Newcastle was a participant in the pilot benchmarking programme and was very supportive of a national approach. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Services), Dr Sue Gould, chairs the Grant Governance Group which has representatives from universities, HES and the AUPC.

The first three ANHEPBP sub-projects in office supplies, laboratory supplies and temporary staff were commenced simultaneously in February 2007, and have been completed on schedule, due to a wonderfully coordinated effort by Jan Rose, Project Director (ANHEPBP), the AUPC Executive Committee, Purchasing Index and participating universities. University participants responded enthusiastically and with great professionalism to the data gathering exercise, which was quite substantial across 27 participating universities. Universities received their commercial in confidence market intelligence reports during the last week of June. Follow-up workshops are to be held to explore potential for aggregated or collaborative purchasing strategies. Planning is underway for the next 9 sub-projects and advisory groups have been established.

A very successful project scoping Collaborative Workshop was held in Melbourne in June for the 13 universities who are participating in Phase 1 of the Procurement Function Benchmarking sub-project. The expectation is that this project will begin in July and that a repeat exercise for the same group will take place in Phase 3 in late 2008 and early 2009. This sub-project will involve significant data collection internally within universities. Other universities will be invited to undertake the benchmarking exercise in Phase 2 starting later in 2007.

A presentation on outcomes of the first sub-projects will be given at the upcoming 7th National University Finance and Procurement Conference 23 to 25 July 2007 by the HES CEO, Cynthia Hansen and the MD of Purchasing Index, Bojan Pajic. Further details about the ANHEPBP can be found at www.hes.edu.au or Jan Rose (Project Director) can be contacted jan@hes.edu.au