Study on workflow-based open competitive bidding e-procurement mechanism

With the advent of the Internet in business world, buyers need at times to make use of competitive procurement strategies for certain purchases despite the move in recent years towards supplier partnerships. Within the realm of management, it is important for organizations to provide an open competitive bidding environment for suppliers. A new two stages e-procurement mechanism is designed. In the first stage, a contract is negotiated by a multiround multiattribute sealed-bid auction. The stage can be repeated until the non-price attributes are decided and announced. In the second stage, the lowest price is yielded through open competitive bidding in an online real-time dynamic auction. Workflow technology is also applied to define the purchasing process. Under the new mechanism, both buyer and the selected supplier enhance their pay-off.