Procurement IT system or toolset recommended as part of LSS effort
Description
This project will take up LSS recommendations for useful places and ways to implement IT as part of the full set of recommendations for improving purchasing mainly to shorten the time to make a purchase and to save staff time in the process.
Project Justification
In addition to a long average and occasionally unacceptable procurement fulfillment time, there is a significant if unmeasured investment of time by everyone touching the process. Applying LSS recommendations to targeted IT solutions should save a lot for added time for many participants.
Linked work items
relates to
IPTD-357
SimpliGov - Initial IT Procurement form and workflow
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IPTD-373
Centralize and consolidate all Laptop/PC tracking and procurement with DOIT
![Assignee:]()
IPTD-357
SimpliGov - Initial IT Procurement form and workflow
Completed
IPTD-373
Centralize and consolidate all Laptop/PC tracking and procurement with DOIT
Active
Activity
Show:
This project record is considered complete with two actual IT projects underway and linked here as 373 & 357. Two other projects agreed to at close are not IT related and in the hands of M&B as described below.
Firm commitments were obtained for 4 actions to take:
Designate and empower a clear, limited number of both IT and Non-IT program purchasing leads (Budget & Finance)
Develop and deliver training on the purchasing process (IT and non-IT) for the purchasing leads (Budget and Finance)
Build a new digital form and workflow in SimpliGov for the IT purchasing process (DOIT)
Centralize the purchasing and inventory of PCs and laptops within DOIT (DOIT)
See the LSS presentation summarizing the process that led to decisions here: GMT20230817-151203_Recording_1920x1080 (2) - Rutgers University Media Space (kaltura.com)
7/17/23 toll gate meeting with leadership. See attached PowerPoint. discussion occurred about shared staffing (by M&B to backup IT procurement) and building a basic SimpliGov flow. No firm commitments.
Gather possible problems from team: no analysis or data needed just collect all possible problems.
Narrow to probable problems: investigate each possible problem based on data collected or process analysis to determine which problem is probable.
Identify critical problems: which probable problems are the most critical to the cycle time of the process. Investigate with data or process analysis.
Put process changes in place for critical problems: For example, if a problem is that there is a lack of tracking in the process, and this leads to increased cycle time the process change will be to add a tracking feature so that staff can know how long a process takes and where the procurement request is at each stage of the process.
Do this for each critical problem.
Then move onto the Control phase: Implement, train people, collect data, create operating procedures and control mechanisms.
Regu, the black belt, is ok with meeting with Knute if there are additional questions.
Matt, Sagar, Carol, Jim and Knute met today for 1/2 hour check on LSS process. Having Defined the current process flow, and Measured the touch and wait times, we agreed that Matt would check-in with Paz on some tools to analyze and brainstorm improvements, including the fish-bone diagram at least.
Knute shared an interest in exhausting all potential for process improvements before designing IT solutions that fit the process. Knute shared that Pete Tenebruso is expecting some benchmarking to the best-known IT approaches and systems and is willing to advocate for leveraging the common needs of agencies in finding IT solution pathways.
We discussed that currently some technology candidates for developing request processing workflows would seem to include PowerApps, Pega, SimplyGov, and potentially ServiceNow used by OIT.