SSAI Developed an Application that Streamlines Procurement Tasks – Improving Cost, Efficiency, and Customer Satisfaction
SSAI's information technology staff developed an application to streamline the company’s procurement process by using electronic forms and automated approval workflows.
The Electronic Purchase Request System (EPRS) significantly reduced inefficiencies in its legacy system and has a built-in flexibility enabling all SSAI contracts and internal departments to use it for purchasing while accommodating the specialized requirements of each group’s approval workflow.
The EPRS initial success when deployed has made the creating the purchase request (PR)process more efficient and also generated many new, innovative ideas to further improve to the entire end-to-end procurement process.
Overview
In Fall 2019, members of the project management office — one of SSAI’s largest contracts — recognized that they had a problem. The level of purchasing needed to fulfill the tasks on this complex engineering contract overwhelmed the existing procurement process (which had many bottlenecks and required manual re-entry of detailed parts specifications from the initial purchase request into SSAI’s accounting system).
They approached the SSAI IT team that had automated several other business processes and initiated a project to streamline the company’s procurement process by using electronic forms and automated approval workflows.
Results
In response to rising procurement demand, SSAI’s IT team successfully developed the EPRS application, which has significantly reduced the inefficiencies of the legacy system by making it easier for users to submit, approve, and track purchase requests and by eliminating the need for data reentry. The system design has proven flexible enough to allow use by all SSAI contracts and internal departments for all purchases while accommodating the specialized requirements of each group’s approval workflow.
EPRS uses Microsoft SharePoint enhanced with Nintex Forms and Nintex Workflows to capture data for each PR through a web-based electronic form. Custom validation rules in the form prevent the submission of PRs with missing or incorrect data — one of the most common reasons for rejected PRs in the previous process. Once submitted, the PR goes through a chain of approval steps until it reaches the Procurement Department where an assigned buyer completes the purchase. PRs are stored as SharePoint list items along with any attachments (detailed specifications, vendor quotes, statements of works, etc.) and are easily exported to SSAI’s accounting system.
SSAI developers streamline processing. (Image attribution: mourgfile, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
EPRS is also able to query Costpoint database tables in order to provide information on the electronic form, such as contact numbers, project codes, vendor contact information, and so on — which previously required an entry via the requestor. The ability to pull data from existing systems into the form saves time and prevents transcription errors.
The initial success of the EPRS deployment has not only made the PR creation process more efficient, it has also generated new, innovative ideas to further improve the entire end-to-end procurement process, including enhanced and more timely reporting and additional integration with existing accounting and HRIS systems. It has encouraged stakeholders to think more creatively about ways to solve persistent problems. It has potentially helped solve a small part of a larger problem but in doing so, it has opened SSAI to innovative thinking that was previous unexplored.
In summary, future benefits of the EPRS system for SSAI and our customers include cost- and time-savings, increased efficiency, increased customer satisfaction, and potential for even more innovation.