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March 09 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine Goal: Deliver improved business processes, systems, and tools that meet the needs of our emploees, reduce the cost of doing business, and improve the Laboratory's mission performanceAcquisition Spending Plan enhances procurement
Purchasing goods and services accurately and in a timely manner is essential to the Laboratory's meeting its mission and programmatic requirements. Helping the Laboratory to better manage the procurements process is the goal of the Acquisition Spending Plan. With an accurate Acquisition Spending Plan, the Laboratory can handle procurements more efficiently (e.g., combining same company contracts to leverage buying) and can ensure that the Procurement Group has the resources it needs to meet the Laboratory's procurements needs. "In addition, it increases competition when you give vendors time to get their teaming partners together and compete for work here at the Laboratory," said Kevin Chalmers, Acquisition Services Management (ASM) Division leader. The Lab benefits from this increased competition in the form of more companies wanting to provide better quality goods and services, he explained. The Laboratory's procurement process often has been a misunderstood function. "A lot of our requestors who require a product or service have uncertainty about their programs' funding," said Chalmers. "This causes many people to wait until the latter part of the year to spend those funds." This practice can create a bottleneck for procurement. To get a better handle on Laboratory procurements, Chalmers provided all associate directors a spending analysis report for what they spent in fiscal year 2008. The report broke down purchases by type of transaction, average dollar amount per purchase, and top suppliers for transactions. Chalmers then asked Lab directorates to provide ASM with forecasts for purchases greater than $100,000 to be made in fiscal year 2009. Each forecasted procurement has been assigned a procurement specialist to enable better internal customer service early on in the procurement cycle. Before a requisition is even initiated by the requesting organization, ASM contacts the organization to provide assistance with their procurement needs. "The Acquisition Spending Plan will be used this fiscal year as a performance measure on how well the Laboratory plans and executes its procurement needs, so it is very important for all procurements to be captured on the plan. However, Procurement will work hard at supporting all unanticipated or emergency purchases." Chalmers said. Other Headlines
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