Modelling commodity supply chain in higher educational institute

Collaborative commerce ensures adding value at every intermediate stage in the supply chain and is nowadays recognised as a powerful source of competitive advantage. This concept of adding value can be applied to the educational scenario with Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) procuring multi-commodities. Rationale for the study has been to eliminate legacy procurement system and implement industry models in HEIs based on value and importance of multiple commodities. An attempt has been made to model commodity supply chain which will add value to HEIs.

The study involved development of product categorisation matrix which segregated the commodities as general, bulk purchase, critical and strategic commodities. Mathematical modelling of these items has been developed, using economies of scale for general and bulk purchase category, uncertainty for critical category and product availability for strategic category. Frameworks for commodities of different categories have been constructed using spreadsheets. Lastly, the proposed model has been validated using operational data of a HEI (MSRSAS) from previous period

Results showed significant savings in supply chain cost. Critical items have been evaluated in terms of cycle service level and fill rate. Finally, based on the demand pattern, suitable inventory levels for multi-commodities have been suggested. In principle, the outcome of the study would help the procurement managers of HEIs to manage multicommodity procurement scientifically and optimally.