There were other reasons, though. At the time, the purchasing department received and logged faxed requisitions from end users, processed them, and then forwarded them to the right buyers. The company's growth also prompted it to consider e-procurement. They gave us input on what they had done for other customers our size, offered a number of good ideas on how the system could interface in our company, and provided a lot of support. These requisitions are automatically routed to the management system for approval and then through the budgeting process.
Buyers then place orders electronically with suppliers.
For example, they can tell who in management approved or needs to approve it, when it was budgeted, when it was ordered, the due date, and so on. The catalogs are created and main tained by Brennan Powe and Bruce Spikerman of Gray's staff. The reason it took so long is the department wanted to get it right. Then, to verify and supplement this information, we spent a lot of time talking with users. We also discussed the system with the users to see what kinds of needs they might have to make the system easy to use.