BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Los Alamos National Laboratory is taking action to make it easier for New Mexico businesses to contract with it by upgrading to a new procurement software system.
In FY2019, the Laboratory spent more than $396 million in procurement and contracts in New Mexico. Of that $269 million was with the small business community and the Lab is striving to increase those numbers year after year, LANL Deputy Director of Operations Kelly Beierschmitt said in a recorded message during last week’s virtual community conversation.
“To do that we need to give you the tools and the training to effectively compete for our business and this new software upgrade will allow us to do both. There’s lots of opportunity coming and we look forward to creating more business relationships with you and Northern New Mexico in our future,” he said. “We want to attract and qualify new suppliers to support the influx in Laboratory work in procurement that’s coming in the near future. We want to enhance our relationship with our suppliers in addition to adding new suppliers so that everyone is set up for success in working with the Laboratory.”
Participants in a virtual workshop were told the Lab is modernizing and streamlining our processes and tools and that procurement is going digital. All current and future suppliers will need to move to the new system which the Lab hopes will simplify interactions and provide transparency and visibility, allowing faster processing and payment for orders.
LANL has already started to roll out virtual workshops in a phased approach to transition to the new system in an effor
Our suppliers are a critical part of the Lab’s success and essential to meeting the mission so we want to make sure we have the processes and tools in place to support that.
The bottom line is that procurement is going digital at LANL. Currently manual based systems paper based and this is going to affect all our suppliers. All of them will need to move to the new system. It will be a little bit of a transition but we’re hoping to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Will simplify interactions and provide transparency and visibility for transactions at any time and increase efficiency overall. Get paid faster and orders will go through faster.
LANL has already started holding virtual workshops and reaching out to suppliers to let them know how the change is going to impact and to make sure they get trained and have the necessary resources. The new system is Cloud-based from business to business and LANL is hoping it will offer opportunities for vendors to also interact with other businesses as well as LANL.
For more information, go to https://www.lanl.gov/business/transformation.php