Objective. To evaluate organ donation (OD) policy, appropriate comparisons between different OD programs are required. The objective of this research was to investigate alternative methods of measuring national rates of OD using publicly available data and examine the implications of using each method as a measure of performance. / Method. We used 7 measures to calculate deceased OD rates, based on 7 different denominators. Data were collected from OD organizations and the World Health Organization. OD rates for each measure were calculated for 10 countries for the years 2001--2004. Relative rates were calculated using Spain as the standard. / Results. We found variations in relative rates across the proposed measures. Regardless of the measure used Spain excelled. / Conclusion. If the purpose of the OD rate is to identify the top performer internationally, it may not matter which measure is used providing this is done with an understanding of its limitations.

<p>Government procurement is a very important aspect of international tradeas it can either promote or inhibit trade depending on laws and policies of a country. The study is confined to issues pertaining to the role of RTAs in establishing government procurement standards that resemble or conform to those of the GPA in developing countries. The study used Africa as a case study by evaluating selected RTAs that have been signed focussing on RTAs such as the procurementinitiativeof the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement. The major objectives of the study were to examine the role of the existing international regulatory instruments towards the harmonisation of global standards on government procurement. The reserach aimed at analysing the role of the WTOs GPA as a possible global standard for government procurement and to investigate reasons of limited membership by developing countries.</p>

Procurement has been viewed as a Cinderella function, merely rendering service to core functions such as operations/production, engineering, R&D and marketing. The activities of procurement have been mundane and repetitive in nature. The importance of procurement can be understood by looking at the cost of goods sold as reflected in each company’s financial statement. In some companies this cost is more than 70% of sales revenue. World class companies realised this and elevated the procurement function to strategic levels. However, lagging companies still operate as if it is fifty years ago. The aim of this study is to determine whether companies are adapting new methods of procurement instead of pitting suppliers against each other in search of the lowest purchase price. A sample of 30 procurement managers was drawn from the 2006 Financial Mail 100 SA Best Companies. It comprised managers of companies stemming from different industries ranging from petrochemicals and banking services to hospitality, etcetera. These companies were chosen because they are the best in their class. Data was collected using questionnaires developed by the researcher and e-mailed to respondents. Regression analysis was conducted and it was established that there is a positive relationship between information sharing and trust. There seems to be a negative relationship between trust and communication. It was noted with dismay that a large contingent of procurement personnel who are supposed to uplift the status of procurement do not possess post-matriculation qualifications. This poses a serious drawback since these procurement personnel are supposed to transact with highly qualified sales representatives from the supplier companies. It is therefore recommended that companies be selective in their procurement approaches, tendering for leverage items, negotiating for strategic items and using a procurement card for shop items. Supplier performance measurement must be conducted to improve performance and partnerships formed with high performing suppliers. The skills levels of procurement officials need to be upgraded to enable them to deal with new challenges. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009. / Sasol Secunda Shared Services and Kumba Iron Ore.

The research aims to identify ways to enhance the supplier selection process for large transformers at Eskom. The research was based on the hypothesis that there are significant opportunities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of transformer purchases at Eskom. Large transformers are a strategic commodity for Eskom, due to the criticality and impact of the commodity on Eskorn's business. Eskom plans to spend R2.2 billion on transformers over the next five years. This indicates a substantial financial spend on the commodity. The opportunities that could be derived from transformer purchases are not only quantitative but also qualitative. The commodity, therefore, requires strategic effort in order to maximise the opportunities. The key findings of the research were as follows: • Transformer purchases and the organisational entity is complex, as it entails numerous stakeholders, complex systems, people and processes. • Eskom has not progressed from 'procurement management' to 'supply management'. • Eskom has a decentralised approach to transformer procurement, despite the strategic nature of the commodity and the fact that it purchases across the three main Eskorn Divisions. Procurement requirements are not consolidated. • There is a lack of communication and collaboration across and within Divisions. • There are no purchasing strategies, methodologies or tools to enhance the procurement process. • Procurement Officers lack knowledge on many well known methodologies, commodity knowledge, market knowledge, and supplier knowledge. • There is no focus on supplier relationship management. • Suppliers have indicated substantial opportunities for transformer procurement at Eskom. Implementing 8 World-Class SourcingProcess at Eskom with specificreference to the SupplifJr Selection Process for Large Transformers Pagei . The key recommendations based on the findings of the research are as follows: • Supply management personnel should be trained in world-class methodologies like total cost of ownership (TeO), strategic sourcing, supplier economics, supplier analysis, market research, etc. • A centralised approach to the procurement of strategic items must be instituted. This should result in a single person being responsible and accountable for Eskom's Supply management. • A collaborative approach must be encouraged by means of cross-functional teams. • Opportunities identified in the research must be implemented by a cross-functional team whom should be responsible and accountable for the implementation of the opportunities identified. • Supplier relationships must be initiated and effectively managed by the cross-functional team leaders. • The implementation must be monitored and tracked by the project sponsor. If the above recommendations are implemented Eskom would realise significant opportunities in large transformer purchases at Eskom. Should the recommendations be implemented on other commodities Eskom would achieve quantum leap improvements to Supply Management. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Green Procurement is defined as taking into account environmental criteria for goods and services to be purchased in order to ensure that the related environmental impact is minimized (Incite Sustainability, 2008: vii).An inherent feature of green procurement is the integration of environmental considerations into purchasing policies, programmes and actions (Stigson & Russell, 1998:9). The European Commission states that green public procurement should ideally cover areas such as the purchase of energy-efficient computers and buildings, office equipment made out of environmentally sustainable timber, recyclable paper, environmentally-friendly public transport, organic food in the cafeteria, electricity stemming from renewable energy sources and air conditioning systems complying with environmental solutions(European Commission, 2004:5). The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) recommends the inclusion of the construction of new buildings, restoration and renovation as well as the purchase of building material as one of the areas that have to be addressed when developing green procurement policies. The City of Tshwane Municipality (CoT) intends to move towards a green procurement practice. The City plans to attain the latter without deviating from the intentions and parameters of the South African Government’s procurement legislation and further more within the limits of its current budget constraints. The intention of the study was to investigate the feasibility of a green procurement practice in the CoT and to give special attention to low cost housing. The results of the study suggest that it is feasible to implement the practice. The City of Tshwane was found to have relevant and progressive policies in place and what was found lacking was the application and integration of the policies into existing programmes. Green procurement barriers that the CoT will have to overcome were identified as awareness, motivation, economic, legal, institutional, information and technical barriers. The study concludes with recommendations to the CoT with regard to potential opportunities the City can take advantage of when implementing a green procurement practice. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Green Procurement is defined as taking into account environmental criteria for goods and services to be purchased in order to ensure that the related environmental impact is minimized (Incite Sustainability, 2008: vii).An inherent feature of green procurement is the integration of environmental considerations into purchasing policies, programmes and actions (Stigson & Russell, 1998:9). The European Commission states that green public procurement should ideally cover areas such as the purchase of energy-efficient computers and buildings, office equipment made out of environmentally sustainable timber, recyclable paper, environmentally-friendly public transport, organic food in the cafeteria, electricity stemming from renewable energy sources and air conditioning systems complying with environmental solutions(European Commission, 2004:5). The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) recommends the inclusion of the construction of new buildings, restoration and renovation as well as the purchase of building material as one of the areas that have to be addressed when developing green procurement policies. The City of Tshwane Municipality (CoT) intends to move towards a green procurement practice. The City plans to attain the latter without deviating from the intentions and parameters of the South African Government’s procurement legislation and further more within the limits of its current budget constraints. The intention of the study was to investigate the feasibility of a green procurement practice in the CoT and to give special attention to low cost housing. The results of the study suggest that it is feasible to implement the practice. The City of Tshwane was found to have relevant and progressive policies in place and what was found lacking was the application and integration of the policies into existing programmes. Green procurement barriers that the CoT will have to overcome were identified as awareness, motivation, economic, legal, institutional, information and technical barriers. The study concludes with recommendations to the CoT with regard to potential opportunities the City can take advantage of when implementing a green procurement practice. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

The goal of this dissertation is to understand the market-based mechanisms that enable shippers to allocate lanes in an efficient way for truckload (TL) transportation procurement despite the self-interest of carriers. To understand the market-based mechanisms, we focus on proposing some novel models and mechanisms to enhance the use of combinatorial auction for TL transportation procurement. In this dissertation, our approach to gaining the understanding consists of three parts: 1. We develop a carrier optimal bid generation model for carriers (bidders) to discover the best sets of lanes to bid for at a given round. The optimal bid generation model simultaneously generates alternative tours and selects the most profitable package bid for the carrier under a myopic strategy, which has never been considered before. The simultaneous tour generation and selection significantly lessen the computational complexities of a carrier's optimization problem since it is unnecessary for the carrier to calculate the values for all possible packages. 2. We present an iterative combinatorial auction design that integrates the optimization problems for both the shipper and the bidders where the approximate dual prices derived from the result of a winner determination solution are used by the bidders in identifying profitable lanes. The auctions also allow the bidders to submit exclusive-OR (XOR) bids and are able to deal with some common business considerations. The extension of the concept of active bids enables this mechanism to effectively mitigate the exposure problem, the threshold problem, and the free-riding problem. Furthermore, both the shippers and the carriers are better off compared to multi-round auctions that do not integrate the shippers' and carriers' optimizations. 3. We extend a deterministic winner determination model to a two-stage stochastic winner determination model for TL transportation procurement under shipment volume uncertainty. We demonstrate that the value of the stochastic solution is always at least as good as one obtained by a deterministic model based on using expected shipment volumes. The sWDP model is to the best of our knowledge the first winner determination formulation of any kind that explicitly incorporates demand uncertainty.

Thesis (MProjMgmt)--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-137). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Wu, D.J.; Committee Member: Keskinocak, Pinar; Committee Member: Narasimhan, Sridhar; Committee Member: Toktay, Beril; Committee Member: Zhang, Han.