Supply of works, services or products

Network Rail spends circa £4.5 billion annually on works, services and bought-in goods. We are committed to maximising the value delivered from every supplier with whom we deal.

Every year a supplier survey is undertaken to better understand perceptions of Network Rail and this includes procurement practices. Many of the comments received have been acted on through a significant programme of transformation. Five primary actions have been taken:

• Completed a review of Purchase to Pay processes and implementation of iProcurement 
• Developed a strategic sourcing process to manage commercial activity consistently 
• Launched a Supplier Account Management Process for key suppliers 
• Reviewed the Qualification and Assurance Processes 
• Refreshed our standard suite of contracts  

Each of these is a significant project in its own right and demonstrates clearly the commitment to improving supplier relationships.

Network Rail has established 30 category families which cover the company's entire expenditure profile. As part of this, we have defined the scope of these categories by taking each of the Achilles Link-Up codes and connecting them to one of the category families. Category strategies consider the category from a company-wide perspective and use historic and more importantly future demand and market analysis to define a 3 to 5 year strategy for each category family. For more information please go to the contact us page.