BPM Speeds the Purchase Request Plow

Advanced Management Technology (AMT) provides IT support equipment, software, and training to public and private sector clients, including NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Facilitating some of its business processes when dealing with such high-profile clients--particularly the multimillion-dollar purchase requests it receives--is a priority. The multistep process used to take five to 10 business days, according to Jim Hooper, COO of AMT. "The purchase manager had to fill out a purchase request form, get authorization from the customer to purchase it, obtain three quotes on it, send the request to our headquarters in Virginia, make a request, get it approved by the controller, make a purchase order, and process it." AMT turned to Metastorm's e-Work business process management suite to remedy the issue. Using the business process management tools allowed AMT to reduce the time to process a purchase request on average from more than two weeks to 1.25 days, and many in as little as four hours. Now employees can make more purchases for customers. "With e-Work most requests are processed within 24 hours, allowing us to turn attention back to things that are more important, such as serving the customers," Hooper says. One large federal agency was even happier when AMT reduced the material handling fee it charged on each individual purchase of more than $200,000 from 5 percent to 3 percent, after realizing that it costs about the same to process a $100,000 request as it does to process a $2 million one using the system. Contracts with AMT are evaluated on performance every six months, and the agency has increased its fees by 10 percent. Hooper says: "The customer understands we're looking for innovative ways to make processes easier to do."

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