Paperless Procurement an Uphill Climb

ith the Y2K doomsday fast approaching, it's hard to argue for big bucks for procurement automation. I'm sure we'd all prefer to get a requisition a little late than be stuck in an elevator that's waiting for another hundred years to go by before moving us to the next floor. However, as wheelbarrows full of Y2K largess are being handed out, might there not be a few million dollars available for other important, though less daunting, information technology needs?

One factor that underlies the wide-ranging procurement reform agenda is an unrelenting automation movement. Part of the impetus comes from presidential directives on electronic commerce. But it is also reflected in diverse ways such as the proliferation of federal agency Web sites that provide bid information or requests for proposals (444 at my last count), the Defense Department's push for a paperless procurement environment by 2000, and Agriculture's anticipated 80 percent savings per transaction by moving from paper requisitions to purchase cards. With or without White House or congressional encouragement, agencies are following the commercial marketplace's embrace of electronic pathways.

The phenomenon is not entirely new. Some agencies have been on this path for almost a decade. Paul Denett, the Interior Department's procurement executive and director of administration, sought funds for an automated departmentwide procurement system in the early 1990s. His challenge back then was to persuade officials at Interior and the Office of Management and Budget and in Congress that the project was worth the investment. While the circumstances may differ today, the challenge for Interior and other agencies remains the same: Given so many other competing priorities, why invest in procurement automation?

In Denett's view, the answer is simple. With disparate bureaus tied to their own procurement systems, Interior was not getting the quality of data it needed. An inspector general report bolstered this case, saying that procurement data were not accurate, timely or complete. Moreover, as regulatory and legislative reforms were forcing rapid changes to procurement processes, Interior bureaus were independently upgrading their systems, which multiplied costs and further complicated data inconsistencies.

Interior responded with a moratorium on upgrades and a decision to buy a commercial off-the-shelf product to standardize procurement systems, documents and data collection as well as automate paper-intensive procurement processes.

While the "why" of the consolidation and modernization effort continues to be easy to answer, how to achieve it is more complicated. Getting buy-in from the users of these new tools may outweigh the challenge of how to fund them. "It's been a bear," Denett says. "We're getting there and succeeding, but it's a lot harder and taking a lot longer than we had ever anticipated."

Debra Sonderman, director of Interior's Office of Administration and Property Management, can empathize with Denett's situation. She is responsible for implementing the Interior Department Electronic Acquisition System (IDEAS).

The system Interior initially bought was meant to handle large and small purchases and accommodate electronic commerce. It consisted of 11 modules ranging from requisition to invoicing, many of them serving different customers.

The system, although providing a structured, step-by-step progression through various data screens to carry out specific procurement tasks, was a victim of the very circumstances that brought it to the department: technology change. Employees accustomed to using simple word processing systems and "click and drag" capabilities had to learn a new language of screens and keystrokes. The long litany of complaints included:

• Users couldn't move backward on the screens if they had made an error, forcing them to recycle through the entire process.
• A particular keystroke might perform one function on one screen and something entirely different on another.
• Processing was slow-in some cases, slower than that of legacy systems being replaced.

Recognizing the limitations of the new system and hearing the frustrations of users, Interior sought a new contractor at the end of 1996. Sonderman's advice to other agencies is: "Don't be afraid to listen to what your customers are actually saying to you and act on it. Don't be afraid to pull the plug."

The recompetition included extensive stakeholder participation as well as pilot testing at three Interior sites. The agency reports that 85 percent of its customers are pleased with the newest system, which will be implemented at all major buying offices by the end of this fiscal year. Sonderman says the key to the successful implementation is "continuing to talk to the end users, the requisitioners and people from the procurement offices."

That's a good message for all of us to take to heart.

Allan V. Burman, a former Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, is president of Jefferson Solutions in Washington. Contact him at aburman@govexec.com.