Purchasing, now online
Archived article from Oct 7, 2002
This summer, Rutgers continued to enhance administrative systems by introducing a new online Internet purchasing system that cuts the costs and time associated with the use of paper forms.
The Web-based universitywide procurement system is one of the first such systems implemented at a New Jersey college or university, according to Bruce Fehn, associate vice president for administration and chair of the team of faculty and staff that coordinated the project.
"It's remarkable — the university has moved over one summer from a 1950s-era paper process to one that represents the best of 21st-century management practices," Fehn noted.
Since the system began July 8, Fehn said, there has been heavy user volume and relatively few complaints, although some buying needs specific to individual units are still being worked out.
Almost 2,000 people have been trained to use the system, which uses a Web interface to allow business administrators and others with purchasing or budgetary authority to log into the system, order goods and services, track the status of orders and submit requests for payments to vendors, all through their desktop computers. By late summer, about 500 orders were flowing into the system each workday, Fehn noted.
For Patricia Brancato, manager of personnel operations on the Newark campus, the new system greatly simplified the work of reviewing and approving department purchases.
"The former system involved the use of a lot of paper, and a lot depended on how fast that paper moved along," she said. "Now, orders are posted the next day — it's a lot better for everyone."
Seven companies, representing some of the larger vendors that serve the university, have been integrated into the new system, allowing purchasers to buy from those companies' online catalogs (which display price lists negotiated with the university) and to check out their orders in a process that is like any other online shopping experience, Fehn said.
The new online procurement system was created in response to studies that called for updating of administrative systems. Information is available from www.rias.rutgers.edu.
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