August 2002 — Applications

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KCDA Selects Online Purchasing to Cut Costs, Increase Efficiency and Improve Productivity

By Ron Ricketts

Schools today are under increasing pressure to cut spending without compromising education. One of the areas under closest scrutiny is purchasing supplies, furniture and equipment. The purchasing function is changing as many districts decentralize the process, using site-based management to purchase at different levels (e.g., annually, monthly, daily) as needed. One way vendors have responded to this is through the introduction of e-commerce. Unfortunately, many e-commerce solutions have proven inadequate, unworkable or overly complicated.

The King County Directors' Association (KCDA) was aware of this checkered record when it began exploring e-commerce solutions. KCDA is a nonprofit purchasing cooperative founded in 1938 by a group of school board members in Washington state. Its purpose is to save money through volume purchasing; meet full bid law requirements; manage centralized receiving and distribution; as well as offer a single source for school supplies, furniture and equipment requested by its owner-members. Today, KCDA serves 300 public school districts in Washington, as well as associate member schools and public agencies in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, totaling about 5,000 schools.

KCDA's management realized that e-commerce could help school districts work faster and more efficiently while saving them money. And it would benefit KCDA by enabling the co-op to forecast needs more accurately so it could offer the right inventory at the right time, which would keep costs down and save districts money. The challenge was finding a system that met all of KCDA's criteria, was easy to use and offered proven reliability. KCDA's management had been watching the growth of e-commerce alternatives for assisting school districts and decided they had to address an e-commerce solution to maintain service levels and remain competitive. Since members aren't required to purchase from KCDA, the co-op must compete for their business. Over the years, it has increased service levels and methodologies to keep pace with the growth of its membership.

E-Commerce Solution

After performing due diligence, KCDA's management selected an e-commerce system that promised to meet all criteria, the Spize IT Business-to-Business eCatalog System. The system includes:

  • An online catalog with illustrations, descriptions and prices of all items currently available.
  • User profiles to establish purchasing authorities and determine what information individuals can access.
  • Approval limits.
  • A workflow function to accelerate the approval process, reduce paperwork and improve productivity.
  • Multilingual support.
  • A security program that assigns each user an encrypted password.

    • In addition, the eCatalog System is easy to use and scalable, which allows the system to grow as more members sign on. It's also modular, which allows KCDA to add new functions such as e-procurement. Spize IT completed the Web site to KCDA's specifications, allowing the co-op to offer several unique capabilities, such as workflow, to speed up the purchasing process by accelerating the approval process.