CDOT Contracting Improvement

Summary By: Contract Improvement Initiative

July 3, 2013

The Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) Contracting Improvement Initiative (CII) began in 2010 following recommendations by one external group and two internal groups, the CDOT Audit Division and the Colorado Transportation Commission’s Standing Committee on Efficiency and Accountability, that the CDOT contracting and procurement processes should be improved to make them more efficient, transparent, and quicker from beginning to end.

Phase I of the project consisted of study and specific recommendations from a private-sector contractor. 

Phase II looked at process re-engineering, contract templates in use at CDOT, performance management, the contracting organization, and the role of technology in both contracting and procurement at CDOT.

Phase III, the implementation phase, began in January 2012.  More than 70 CDOT executive leaders and employees have served on seven Phase III implementation teams:

• Core Leadership/Contracting Structure

• Technology Implementation

• Performance Management

• Contract Templates

• Training

• Process Reengineering

• Communications

In early spring, 2012, implementation of Document Builder, a specific module of CDOT’s business software SAP, was implemented for testing.  A few months later, the first of dozens of CDOT contracts, based on templates approved by the Colorado State Controller, was issued.  Stakeholders can now almost instantly find that current status of their contract in the system and approval times have been reduced.  See the chart below:

The implementation phase of CII is continuing at CDOT with the upcoming implementation of the “Amazon.com-like Experience” of procurement.  Based once again upon an SAP module, this concept enables catalog-style purchasing from approved vendors and products, a shopping cart type approach, and speedy checkout.  This system is expected to greatly reduce beginning to end procurement times when it is fully implemented at the end of 2013.

CII is fully operational and engaged as it moves through a multi-year program of phases and incorporation of cutting-edge technology.  CII predates CDOT’s comprehensive process improvement (Lean) program and is integrated with that overall effort.  CII is the oldest and largest of CDOT’s process improvement projects, and it continues to benefit from CDOT employees who believe in it and are dedicated to seeing it through all of its planned phases to a successful conclusion.