Through the decades, government bidding has become a traditional process, involving many steps to ensure open competition, transparency and accountability when spending taxpayer dollars. However, all the checks and balances have also created a long, cumbersome process for both government teams and companies who compete for government contracts.
One of the biggest complaints about the traditional bid process is that it takes a long time. It is often months between identifying the initial need and the ultimate contract award. While there should never be a goal to dilute the process or lower standards, there are ways to streamline the process to gain efficiency and, ideally, shorten the timelines.
It All Starts at the Beginning
At the beginning of a new budget, departments receive their funding for the entire fiscal year. As a need arises – whether it’s a new commodity or service, replacement equipment, or emergency repairs – departments then start the procuring process. That step requires defining the need through detailed specifications to really nail down the specifics without naming a particular brand or company.
That’s when the slowdown occurs: right at the beginning! While a department might envision what is needed, the real work lies in adequately describing those details. Outlining the features of product or service, the type of work that will be done or problem that will be addressed, and any additional issues such as warranties, delivery schedules, or maintenance requirements are all part of that detailed description.
For example, if a piece of heavy equipment is required, the request cannot be overly prescriptive as to limit competition. One cannot simply copy and paste the manufacturing specifications for one particular manufacturer's piece of machinery and place that in a bid document. Doing so would result in all the other companies who make similar products, but not that exact piece of equipment, being left out of the competitive process.
Often during specification development, the requesting department will ask procurement to write the specification. Sometimes they will provide either a name brand product or write a very narrow list of requirements which are not adequate for a solicitation document. Because the procurement team is often not an expert in the field that is requesting the purchase, this approach results in a lot of back-and-forth conversations or emails, with multiple revisions to finally craft an acceptable specification.
A recent National Cooperative Procurement Partners Association project, the RFP Tracking project, asked agencies to track their time related to a solicitation process. The results showed that Development of the Scope of Work and Specifications for every project was submitted was typically the step that took the greatest amount of time.
AI to the Rescue
There is an opening for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist with this inefficient process. Digital procurement systems that incorporate AI at the beginning of the process can help shorten that timeline immensely. When a department issues an initial request to procurement, they can use AI to make the first pass on creating the specifications based on their needs and their desired product. This draft can then be reviewed by subject matter experts to further fine tune. Alternately, the procurement department can ask AI to craft a set of specifications based on similar solicitations from like agencies, then tweak the results for the purchase at hand.
For example, a simple request to an AI program like, “Create the specifications for an electric utility vehicle that can transport at least 2 people and be used in a city park system” can create an entry level list of requirements. The requester can then augment the list to further refine the information, or they can add additional local requirements such as “must be able to traverse in high altitudes and mountain slopes up to 6% grade,” for a purchase in the mountains of Colorado. Or they might add, “must be able to traverse beach sand,” if they're on the Florida coast.
Within a closed digital procurement system, those specifications and the process to create them will be private, and only accessible to the entity. This security measure ensures that the specifications and bid details are not seen outside of the agency until the bid is released to the public.
Look to the Future
Procurement teams have long recognized that specification development can be a time intensive, cumbersome process. Using an AI-enabled digital procurement system can help address that issue and shorten the timeline of this first step in a significant way.
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