By Robin Friefield-Hudson, BSc, CPPB, NIGP-CPP, Procurement Specialist, Procurement Services, City of Mississauga | Corporate Services Department
When I started with Mississauga’s procurement team in 2007, we were known as Materiel Management. We were paper-driven and a relatively small group of about 14 people.
Back then, completing a procurement plan was an essential part of the procurement intake process. The procurement plan was a paper form that dissected the procurement into tasks and assigned persons most responsible (PMR) and estimated target due dates. The form was created as a result of a long project. This helped in both managing the procurement as well as client expectations with realistic timelines.
The procurement plan consisted of 13 core tasks distilled into five main categories:
- Planning
- Process & procurement document development
- Bidding window
- Evaluation & review, and
- Award & contract execution
This allowed the buyers to keep track of when each task was completed and allowed measurement against target due dates.
Microsoft Access housed a procurement log which gave us our procurement numbers and was a place where we could keep track all contract awards resulting from a procurement process. Working files were set up on a network drive which was inaccessible to our client groups. Documents were shared by email, creating multiple versions of the same document, and often meant extremely large email files.
Once bidding and evaluations were complete, an Excel-based Bid Award Recommendation (BAR) form was physically circulated to all applicable authorizers required under the Procurement By-law. This meant the form was circulated through email, inter-office mail and/or personal delivery and often required driving to other city buildings in urgent situations. Thinking back, this process was neither efficient nor safe; documents could have very easily been misplaced. Our entire process was paper-driven and time-consuming.
The City needed a collaboration tool that could help us manage our documents, workflows, and approval processes more efficiently. An RFP was issued, and the City selected a firm that would help the City design and build its own document management and workflow system (later called the Procurement Centre). The Procurement Centre is an application built in SharePoint, which was an existing application. The project took two years to complete and implement.
In 2017, we launched the Procurement Centre which is accessible to every employee.
Anyone looking to start a procurement process completes a Procurement Request Form (PRF), which ultimately gets assigned to a Procurement Specialist. This form includes procurement details, budget/account information for the acquisition and requires confirmation as to whether or not accessibility and sustainability were addressed. There is also a requirement that the Contract Manager has completed Procurement 101 training prior to commencing the process. The PRF is signed by the Contract Manager, the Procurement Specialist as well as the Financial Analyst (to ensure there are sufficient funds to proceed).
Once the PRF is fully signed, a procurement record is set up in the Procurement Centre. Tasks are assigned to PMRs who are responsible for moving the procurement forward. Document packages, called Kits, are uploaded to the document library contained in each procurement as a starting point for document development. The Procurement Specialist works collaboratively with the Contract Manager in SharePoint to ensure the procurement package is complete and complies with City requirements.
All acquisitions estimated to be worth over $100,000 are posted on bids&tenders. Once the bidding closes, all bids are uploaded to the Procurement Centre for review and analysis. Bid documents for procurements worth between $25,000 and $100,000 are conducted via email and are also saved to the Procurement Centre.
Regardless of the method of acquisition, all award recommendations are now circulated for approval through the Procurement Centre. The Procurement Authorization Request (PAR) form is completed by the Procurement Specialist and includes information on all bids received and those that may have been disqualified. It includes details on the process, any anomalies and /or issues with the process and of course, the recommendation(s) to award.
Authorizing signatures are input in order of required signing, starting with the Contract Manager and ending with the highest-level signature required as dictated by the City’s Procurement By-Law. The system sends out emails to those required to authorize the form, with a link to the form in the system. Once all required signatures are obtained, the Procurement Specialist receives a notice advising that all authorizations are complete.
To finalize the procurement process in the system, the Procurement Specialist issues the notice of contract award, obtains all contract documents required and then circulates the contract through DocuSign for signatures. All completed contracts are saved in the Procurement Centre. The PAR form is then finalized, and a PAR release is completed for the exact amount of the contract.
Any contingency that has been preauthorized can be released if and when a contract amendment request is received from the Contract Manager. If there is no preauthorized contingency, the Contract Manager is required to complete a Request for Change (RFC) in the system which leads to a new procurement step under the original procurement number. Another PAR would then be required to be circulated for approval through the Procurement Centre.
There are many benefits to the Procurement Centre, as it:
- allows for accurate record keeping,
- facilitates collaboration across the organization,
- eliminates re-work and duplication, reducing touch-time and waste, complying with the City’s LEAN principles, and
- provides reports and dashboards to improve transparency.
The Procurement Centre, combined with a fully digital procurement platform (bids&tenders), has allowed the City’s Procurement Services to become paperless. We no longer have to file physical files and records management is simplified.
Staff are successfully able to work from home without having to print anything.
Not only is our process more efficient now, but we are also considering sustainability in all acquisitions and doing our part for the environment.
I am proud to be part of the City of Mississauga’s Procurement Services team. Our staffing level has grown by almost 100% since I started. We are a respectful, hardworking team who have embraced positive change. We certainly have come a long way.
—————————–
A special note to our former Manager, Erica Edwards, who has just retired from the City after more than 30 years. We could not have come so far without your guidance and leadership. You will be missed.
And welcome to our new Manager of Procurement Services, Victoria Mirlocca.