Overview
The City of La Mesa known as “The Jewel of the Hills” is located in San Diego County. In its early days, this small Southern Californian town was in the movie-making business. La Mesa is now best-known for its seasonal festivities, as well as for its quaint downtown area on La Mesa Boulevard, more commonly referred to as “The Village.” The Purchasing Officer is responsible for the procurement of city goods and services and for disposal of city surplus equipment and vehicles.
Challenge
The procurement department works hard to issue an RFP and finally negotiates and awards contracts. The contract is handed off to a customer department who is then responsible for making sure that the insurance certificates are updated annually. However, the contract manager has a whole other job - managing this contract. Insurance certification is just one extra “to-do” on their long list. Suppose two years later, the worst happens. A consultant has a car accident and harms a member of the public or a contractor delivers chemicals to your plant, and their poor-quality harms your Agency’s equipment.
Now, a contract manager pulls their insurance certificate, and it is not up to date, or can’t be found. Everyone will look at procurement and ask, “How did this happen?” The only way to always stay on top of the insurance desk is to automate. The city made this decision. Already using the PlanetBids System for managing their bid process, the city decided to add on the module for insurance.
As a one-person procurement office, Scott Munzenmaier is very respectful of the demands on his customer departments and wanted to bring in a solution to help, and not necessarily hinder or lengthen the process for his vendors and customer departments.
Results Using the PB System™
One of the biggest “pinch points” for any type of Agency procurement office is the insurance desk. With a myriad of requirements that vary by contract, and daily need to ensure all insurance certificates are up to date, it’s a process that can be fraught with liability issues. The Insurance Certificate Management module enables risk managers, procurement, and contract administrators to automate, maintain and retrieve up-to-date relevant information regarding vendors’ or contractors’ insurance certificates. The Insurance Certificate Management module can be deployed with the Vendor and Bid Management modules of the PB System™ or as a standalone module to designated users or across an entire organization.
Insurance Automation
Scott Munzenmaier, the Purchasing Officer, succeeded by bringing a solution that works while limiting contract liability issues for the City of La Mesa, California. Now, as new contracts are implemented and put in place, the system tracks expiration dates, and serves as the organization’s insurance database. The best part of the process is that it has been an almost seamless transition. Munzenmaier states “On a scale of 1-10 in level of complexity of implementation, it’s been seamless!”
Chosen PB System™ Solutions
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Vendor Management is the core of the PB System™ modular suite. It offers a configurable registration process to ensure vendor registrations are complete and unique. 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) against third party databases, generate comprehensive reports with visual charts, and broadcast messages to selected vendors.
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Bid Management is the most complete web-based system on the market today. Procurement agents 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.
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Insurance Certificate Management enables risk, procurement, public works, and contract administrators to automate, maintain, and retrieve up-to-date relevant information regarding vendor or contractor insurance certificates. Paired with My Insurance, agencies and vendors can conduct all insurance related tasks virtually within the PB System™.
