Overview
Grand Prairie is a city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex of 20 counties. As the 16th-most populous city in Texas, Grand Prairie’s U.S. Census population is 201,843.
Angi Mize, the Purchasing Manager and 16-year veteran of the city, oversees a team of 7 professional buyers.
Challenge
The city had been using eProcurement for the past few years, but most of this work was conducted through free eProcurement options. While these cost-free options allowed for automating some procurement operations, they still had limitations. One example was the inability to tabulate evaluations, which still needed to be done manually.
As diversity contracting became a higher priority and increased vendor outreach was established as a goal, Mize determined that a fullfeatured eProcurement system was needed.
Interviews were set with eProcurement suppliers, and demonstrations were conducted. PlanetBids was ultimately selected due to its ease of use and affordability.
Results
With an extensive vendor pool readily available in PlanetBids’ PB System™, the city of Grand Prairie was able to take advantage of accessing this existing database, as well as adding their own vendor contact information. In addition, the city met with the Chamber of Commerce and other local associations to introduce the new approach and invite local businesses to register in the new system.
Results Using the PB System™
“We sent an email blast to all our 800 suppliers about the system and provided a transition plan that was relatively seamless,” says Mize. “The PlanetBids system allows us to verify diversity certifications and increase the tracking and reporting of our small business contracts.”
Grand Prairie now uses eProcurement for all its bids, proposal requests, and informal quotes. The long-term goal is also to automate contract management so that hundreds of awarded contracts can be appropriately managed across multi-year commitments. Mize indicates that support from management and embracement by the supplier community has made the project a huge success. She concludes, “While we explored several options, the chosen solution has met and exceeded our needs while remaining affordable.”
Chosen PB System™ Solutions
- Vendor Management is the core of the PB System™ suite of modules. It offers a configurable and intuitive registration process to ensure that vendor registrations are complete and unique, avoiding duplicate records. Instantly gain access to vendor records, run advanced searches on multiple sets of vendor data, perform real-time verification of provided information (i.e., certifications and licenses), generate comprehensive reports with visual charts, and broadcast messages to selected vendors.
- Bid Management is the most complete web-based system on the market today. Procurement professionals can quickly manage the process of issuing, monitoring, conducting evaluations, and awarding formal and informal bids. More importantly, the PB System™ can handle construction and public works projects – a feature unique to the eProcurement industry. Vendors can interactively search, view, and respond to bid opportunities securely over the Internet.
