Classification in e-procurement

A three year Knowledge Transfer Partnership between @UK plc, University of Reading and Goldsmiths College, London produced an e-procurement system called SpendInsight which the National Audit Office reports could save the NHS Σ500 million per annum. An extension to the system, GreenInsight, enables procurers to assess the environmental impact of their purchases and hence make savings there. Key to these systems is the ability to classify products from different sources. This paper focusses on the classification techniques used for analyzing product data, and the research which shows that the normal best method for text classification is not the best here.