Facility Managers Can Impact the Procurement Landscape by Modifying the Technical Requirements

Abstract

A major problem for Facility Managers (FMs) is to get the procurement department to procure expert vendors. Hiring an expert is often neglected by a low-bidding vendor who seems to meet the organizations’ minimal technical requirements. A new approach has been developed and tested which changes the procurement landscape and ensures that the FM gets an expert vendor who pre-plans, identifies what they will deliver ahead of time in a simplistic fashion, and continually measures deviations as they perform their service. The new approach will automatically filter proposals that are not doable or deliverable and minimize risks that are caused by non-expert stakeholders’ decision making. Recent testing of this approach for a large bureaucratic organization led to 15% savings in cost, 50% savings in procurement time and elimination of extenuating and complex issues caused by stakeholders in a bureaucratic organization. This new approach is controlled by the FM professional. The approach eliminates major problems that procurement causes. The paper will review the case study and the method of application of this new approach.