Saving $300,000 on student uniforms

A new approach to procurement at ACU has saved more than $300,000 a year on student uniforms in the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), thanks to a service improvement initiative under the Service Matters Framework.

Under the old procurement system, students would buy uniforms directly from FHS’s six schools, which in turn would source the goods from eight different suppliers to cater for the different requirements of the eight different disciplines. ACU and students were spending more than $1 million a year for uniforms required for student placements.

As the result of using the new procurement model, all FHS students across all campuses now buy direct from one supplier and pay one standard price.

The faculty’s Head of the Centre for Professional Practice and Partnerships, Joanne Cameron, said applying the model meant ACU was no longer required to act as a middleman to buy, sell or hold stock for sale to students. Students benefited from a single national supplier with a set, national delivered price to any student - irrespective of location.

The need for a better procurement process had been identified as a priority through staff feedback via the 2014 Service Matters Survey and consultative workshops.

ACU’s new procurement strategy was initiated by Scott Jenkins, Director of Finance, and managed by Finance Procurement Manager, Nicholas Tamp.

“ACU now has a procurement strategy – supported by policy and procedures – and a delegation framework linked to the Financial Delegations system requirements for general ledger, reporting, data warehousing, procurement and fixed assets,” Nicholas said.

“The FHS uniforms sourcing project exemplifies the benefits that can be achieved by the ACU Procurement framework, not just in dollar terms but in better ways of meeting service needs – in this case for students undertaking placements as part of their course.”

Scott Jenkins said the lack of a consistent, whole of ACU approach to procurement meant that the university had not been able to gain maximum value for its purchasing of goods and services.

“It’s great to see that the work we have done is producing benefits like those in the Faculty of Health Sciences. While we still have some way to go to embed the new model, we are now well-placed to improve procurement activity across ACU to meet the university’s future needs,” he said.

Have you ideas about improving procurement at ACU? For more information contact Finance Procurement Manager Nicholas Tamp at nicholas.tamp@acu.edu.au or extention 2703.  Click here to find out more about the policy.