Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Aleksan Shanoyan / The fresh produce retail market is becoming increasingly competitive and the need to cut costs in order to invest in retail prices and innovations is critical. Seasonality of commodities cause market shoulders where retailers face increased prices and an insecure supply base with risk of being out of product. The implications of paying more than competitors or not having a product on the shelf can risk losing a customer’s business to a competitor. This thesis is an analysis of procurement strategies by retailers in the fresh produce industry, in order to maximize efficiency by reducing cost of goods and securing supply. Specifically, this thesis will analyze different procurement strategies for procuring lemons out of the California San Joaquin Valley. The analysis will compare traditional market buys vs a vertically integrated procurement model in which the retailer procures farm land and controls the commodity from farm to store shelf. While the fresh produce industry has had an evolution over the past century, models of procurement are not following other industries in advancements such as innovations from technology, genetics and sustainability. By advancing procurement models the industry has the potential to not only benefit farmers and retailers but also deliver the customer a fresher product at a reduced price. The objective of this project is to investigate the ways to minimize commodity costs for the retailer and gain security of supply by analyzing procurement strategies for procuring lemons from California. This project is intended to support the fresh produce supply chain and specifically the retailer to optimize their procurement model. To determine an optimal strategy this project will compare and contrast traditional market buys vs a vertically integrated strategy. This is to determine if vertically integrating this commodity in a retailer supply chain would result in a net reduction of cost. Also, this project will determine if security of supply is gained through vertical integration vs traditional market buys. This project will consider variables such as market prices, supply/demand, sustainability and other industry implications. The data examined includes retail pricing and costs, farm production and cost, property market values, and other variables and inputs. The methods of analyzing the data include profitability scenarios throughout multiple procurement models for retailers to determine an optimal procurment model. As a result of the data and methods it is determined that there is an opportunity throughout the produce supply chain for retailers to shift away from traditional procurement models. This project’s proposed land acquisition procurement model is an alternative strategy that can supplement traditional procurement model and would potentially reduce cost of goods and improve supply reliability. This vertically integrated procurement model creates supply chain efficiencies and reduces cost for the retailer along with increasing the retailer's security of supply in the fresh produce commodity market. This analysis should serve as a basis and guide for retailers to determine their company’s optimal procurement model.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed December 5, 2007) Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-62).

<p>There is a shortage of organs available for donation worldwide. There have been several campaigns to try to increase the numbers of registrered donors. The topic has been brought to the forefront but more work is still needed to distribute information to the public.</p><p>The aim of this literature review was to examine what influences people in their decision to donate their organs or not, and what role nurses play in providing the most current information available. The study found that there was several different reasons given for not donating their organs. A great number of people were convinced that their religion was against organ donation. The level of knowledge about organ donation and ethnoculural background were major factors when making the decision to register as an organ donar. Only through making more information available in different languages, educating healthcare workers about culural and religions differences can the numbers of registrated donors increase.</p>

<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>

Railways have played an important role for the Swedish economy throughout the 20th into the 21st century since it provides good connections between urban and rural regions and also within them. However, it has been very costly for the state to run this activity and a significant effort to reduce costs and to increase the efficiency for this sector was to introduce procurement auctions where also private firms are invited to lay bids. Four auctions have taken place in Jönköpings Län since its introduction in 1990. It has been a turbulent time economically for the winning bidders and the phenomena winner’s curse is evident where the bidder with highest over-estimate wins and therefore faces high costs or low returns. This study points at flaws in the auction design as the reason for the economical difficulties for the winning firms. If second-price sealed bid auctions or first-price sealed bid auctions were used instead of a combination of first-price sealed auction and English auction, the winner’s curse phenomena could be reduced or even eliminated.

Problem:The importance of purchasing is often neglected, and the possibilities for continuous improvements in order to reap advantages, such as cost reductions, are often overlooked. Furthermore, the subject of purchasing has not been explored to a large extent in academic research. Therefore, we found the subject to be of great interest and possibly containing opportunities for companies, including Saab Avitronics, to seize. Purpose:The purpose of the thesis is to present recommendations after evaluating the purchasing organization and strategies regarding the strategic purchases within Saab Avitronics, Sweden. Methodology:To receive a deeper understanding of the purchasing department, we found it necessary to use a qualitative method approach. Through a target-oriented selection we choose to do our empirical case study at Saab Avitronics. The empirical study consists of interviews with the selected respondents as well as written documents. Analysis:The analysis is structured according to the theoretical framework; purchasing, purchasing objectives, purchasing organization, purchasing process and purchasing strategies. Conclusions:The conclusions are the recommendations we have been able to suggest to Saab Avitronics in order to improve its purchasing function and increase the purchasing power. We find it appropriate for the business unit to rationalize and diversify its supply-base. Another recommendation is to remove the monetary range each purchaser can authorize purchases of.

There is a shortage of organs available for donation worldwide. There have been several campaigns to try to increase the numbers of registrered donors. The topic has been brought to the forefront but more work is still needed to distribute information to the public. The aim of this literature review was to examine what influences people in their decision to donate their organs or not, and what role nurses play in providing the most current information available. The study found that there was several different reasons given for not donating their organs. A great number of people were convinced that their religion was against organ donation. The level of knowledge about organ donation and ethnoculural background were major factors when making the decision to register as an organ donar. Only through making more information available in different languages, educating healthcare workers about culural and religions differences can the numbers of registrated donors increase.

The chapters of this dissertation explore related aspects of the procurement of conservation services from private landowners. In the first chapter, heuristic laboratory experiments reveal the impact of potential government regulation on strategic forces and efficiency properties in conservation procurement auctions. In the second chapter, data from past procurement auctions are analyzed to discover the existence and magnitude of premiums received by auction participants. The first Chapter, “Procurement Auctions Under Regulatory Threat,” examines how strategic forces and efficiency properties are impacted in auctions for the procurement of environmental services when a threat of regulation is levied. Laboratory experiments examining different regulatory environments demonstrate that a threat of regulation will reduce the amount of public funds necessary to purchase a given level of environmental services. However, adverse selection costs and equity are negatively impacted by threat implementation. The second Chapter, “Estimating Bid Inflation in Procurement of Environmental Services,” studies the size of premiums received by program participants in conservation programs. Predictions informed by economic literature and theory elicit the underlying value distribution for a unique dataset of procurement auctions. Average premiums for auction participants range from almost 50 percent to less than 1 percent across auction periods and institutions. The results demonstrate that both repetition and rule variation may improve the efficiency of procurement auctions. The auctions studied here are shown to yield efficiency improvements of more than 32 percent over standard fixed-payment schemes for service procurement.

It is an important objective for the central government to strengthen the characteristics and competitiveness of single city as well as to empower the nation through the beauty of building in terms of economy, geography and style. However, with the resources to implement in practical operation, the public sector should embrace change. This research intends to address the issue of practicing aesthetics by public building cases under the current law.

¡@For engineering and construction companies, EPCK Projects which include engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning are the most difficult and complex project type for execution, due to the facts that those projects cover all project aspects (E, P, C and K), and are involved by the most amount and variety of stakeholders, especially EPCK projects for the oil refinery and petrochemical plants, which are combined with the most engineering variables and challenges, and could not be handled without care, even for the worldwide renowned engineering companies. ¡@ ¡@The key project control targets for EPCK projects are quality management, time management, cost management and HSE management. Based on PMBOK, project management includes five Project Processes, i.e. initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing processes. Among the five processes, planning management is the most important one. If planned well in advance, project could be executed orderly as scheduled. Project Management Knowledge Areas include integration management, scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human resource management, communication management, risk management and procurement management plans. The integration management is the most important knowledge area, while time management and cost management equally take second place. ¡@ ¡@During the execution of EPCK Project, besides meeting the codes/regulations, specifications and standards, time management and key milestones achievement for meeting contract requirement are most challenging. ¡@ ¡@With regard to shortening the design schedule or changing the design process to meet the EPCK project targets, CTCI¡¦s R&D department had already provided some counter strategies for reaching the targets, but yet provided no solutions to the shortages of the pipe fittings and flanges encountered during pipe prefabrication stage, which every project, not only in domestic but also in overseas, needs to face with, and this issue needs to be further studied in order to find out the improving strategies, which constitute the main topics of this study. ¡@ ¡@The main target of this case study is to solve the shortages of piping fittings and flanges frequently encountered during the project construction phase. For solving this issue, through collecting the execution data of the past domestic oil refinery and petrochemical plant projects of the latest 5 years, sorting out and analyzing the data, this study found out the causes and the counter strategies to shorten total project execution time and meet contract requirements. ¡@ ¡@This case study also used the EPCK P-Project as a pilot project for implementing the new strategies, compared the results with the actual data of the past domestic oil refinery and petrochemical projects, either completed already or currently on-going, explored the differences and did the difference analysis accordingly so as to verify the study results, and hopefully these study conclusions could be used as the reference materials for business process re-engineering in the future, and help the engineering firms to accomplish the mission of sustainable operation.