Its not just public sector procurement, Industry also has its moments....about 50 years ago a well known UK construction company entered into a large capital replacement project to replace a materials hopper facility running into many tens of millions. At the same time in a separate area dealing with transport was looking at replacing its aging fleet of trucks and investigated increasing the carrying capacity of its bulk carriers by raising the sidewalls of the truck beds.
Whilst both projects received approval by the same board, the detail submitted on the cap. ex's didn't identify the operational changes that justified the savings. Needless to say the new hoppers were built and the lorries replaced and quess what the higher sided lorries didn't fit under the new hoppers. So the bottom of the hopper bed had to be excavated and lowered to allow the lorries to access the hoppers.........................lack of joined up thinking more common than you think.
