Trade Extensions - Case Studies

Case Studies

The case studies below highlight the breadth of Trade Extensions' experience and show how the platform is used to source a variety of goods and services in both the private and public sectors.

Cabot Corporation - Optimisation
How Cabot uses optimisation to support strategic decision making and identify savings.

Ineos - Advanced sourcing for logistics
Using advanced sourcing tools and optimisation in logistics sourcing.

Mars - Sustainable transport tendering, the Mars approach
Tthe Mars approach to sustainable transport tendering.

Aricia Consulting - Logistics Analytics
How to find the best available logistics data and use it to your advantage.

Trade Extensions - Client Case Studies
A selection of approaches used in the last year to e-source logistics services. The presentation includes analysis of the methods used and the results achieved.

Road Resurfacing
In early 2002 the Swedish Road Administration (SRA) decided to allow suppliers to submit combinatorial bids when bidding for asphalt resurfacing contracts in one of its regions. The SRA’s main objectives was to minimize the risk of suppliers ending up with an undesirable package of business and to avoid the ‘need’ for collusion. By giving suppliers the option to bid on bundles of contracts and to declare a maximum volume, the incentives for collusion would be weakened. As a result, both small and large suppliers were able to bid more competitively and drive down costs for the SRA.

Care for the elderly
In November 2008, Trade Extensions designed a combinatorial bidding process for the city of Östersund in northern Sweden to buy elderly care services. Suppliers were given the option to submit bids on packages of contracts, as well as single bids for individual contracts and the city met its objectives of improving the quality of the services and lowering the cost.

Cleaning services
In 2007 The Swedish Social Insurance Agency used Trade Extensions to procure cleaning services for all of its local offices in Sweden. By allowing suppliers to submit combinatorial bids, the Swedish Insurance Agency managed to reduce its yearly total procurement cost by about €200,000 and substantially lower the administration cost of handling suppliers.

Bus services
Procuring regional bus services in Sweden using combinatorial bidding increased competition between operators and reduced overall procurement cost.

Domestic flights
The Swedish National Public Transport Agency (NPTA) is responsible for the procurement of Sweden’s long distance public transport system and it used Trade Extensions when auctioning contracts to provide domestic flight routes from Stockholm Airport (Arlanda). The combinatorial process Trade Extensions designed maximised competition and allowed the NPTA to capture significant savings.