TCD Treasurer’s Office Wins Inaugural National Procurement Award

Posted on: 24 November 2010

The procurement department of TCD’s Treasurer’s Office won the Innovation in Public Procurement award at the inaugural National Procurement Awards recently.  The National Procurement Awards (NPAs) is a new awards programme which recognises excellence in the public and private sectors in Ireland, bringing positive exposure to the procurement activities undertaken.

Trevor Kerley, senior buyer at TCD, and Turlough Keiran, head of purchasing at UCD, won the award for their efforts to reduce university expenditure for laboratory based equipment within their respective universities.  Laboratory equipment constitutes on average one third of universities non-pay expenditure.  Following a successful project in 2009 for buying gases, they decided to expand the scope of their activities by collaborating on all facets of laboratory procurement and to include the entire third level sector. 

Trevor Kerley, senior buyer at TCD, and Turlough Kieran, head of purchasing at UCD, receive the trophy for Innovation in Public Procurement from Eddie Scaife, ARAMARK Ireland’s commercial director.

By leveraging the combined expenditure of all third level institutions the buyers have been able to achieve economies of scale that have yielded savings and value added services far in excess of anything attainable by any one institution acting alone.   This new approach to procurement challenges has led both TCD and UCD address the areas of DNA sequencing services and hazardous materials and the team are in the process of initiating the launch of a sector wide tender for chemicals.

The aim of the NPAs, organised by Event Strategies in association with Irish Institute of Purchasing & Materials Management, is to encourage teams and individuals to constantly innovate and maintain their commitment to achieving excellence in procurement in their day-to-day endeavours.  The winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges drawn from state, semi-state and private sectors.