With increasing complaints about the construction industry, purchasers should work to improve their clients’ reputations. Jeff Gaskell explains how
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A successful reverse auction needs at least one out of four or five suppliers to be “very hot” on the process so they will motivate the others into greater activity, according to Bernd Kremmling, group vice-president in charge of chemical buying for BASF. About half of the chemical giant’s raw materials are bought in Europe, and 10 per cent in Asia.
Ariba has promoted chief financial officer Robert Calderoni to president and chief executive officer. The post became vacant in July when co-founder Larry Mueller left the company. It was filled in the interim by chairman and former CEO Keith Krach. www.ariba.com
Manugistics’ new WebConnect Integrate High Volume solution enables integration of supply information from internal and external sources. The tool, powered by a data server from Acta, provides analysis of batch and real-time supply, demand, customer and market data. www.manugistics.com
Rover will begin talks with its 80 main suppliers in a continuing move towards invoicing in euros and it expects to be operating in euros by early next year, writes David Arminas.
Online automotive exchange Covisint could branch out to cater for other areas including farming, heavy equipment, marine, trucking and motorcycles.
Automotive firm Ford is to launch the biggest implementation yet of Microsoft’s Biztalk Server 2000, which comprises e-business standards XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (Soap), on its e-hub portal. www.microsoft.com
Online travel site lastminute.com and Nortel have launched what they believe to be the first voice recognition service to manage hotel supply inventories and room bookings. Those responsible for purchasing at hotels can directly update their inventory by dialling an automated phone service.
The Department of Trade and Industry has launched research projects at Paisley, York, UMIST and Manchester universities to develop electronic solutions to boost confidence in e-commerce and tackle fraud. The initiatives include Fair Integrated Data Exchange Services, a project to design and implement secure e-procurement information exchange systems over the Internet.
A northern aerospace research institute is to be created by three universities and the North West Aerospace Alliance, a supplier group. The Northern Technology and Knowledge Exploitation Centre will use equipment at the University of Manchester, University of Sheffield and the Materials Science Centre at UMIST in Manchester.