SPRING BRANCH ISD
“ When I started with Spring Branch , I noticed that some of the processes that we had in place were extraordinarily bureaucratic , paper-driven and timeconsuming . And I realised if we could automate and streamline our processes , we could then reorient and refocus our staff on what I consider to be the strategic process of procurement , rather than the administrative , which is essentially issuing purchase orders , receiving and paying invoices .
Gay ’ s goal of transitioning to strategic procurement practices led him to become an early adopter of e-procurement . “ We have an electronic ordering system . We use Dynamic Punchout Catalogues to create a shopping environment , if you will , for our end users . One of the key ones we use is the Amazon Business platform . We ' re able to leverage the Amazon platform and order just about anything that we could possibly need on a campus digitally and have it delivered within 24 to 72 hours .”
“ It ' s been estimated that if you use a digital procurement process versus the oldfashioned paper process that you save about $ 73 per transaction . When you have that kind of soft savings in your process , that returns a lot of time and effort back to the principal and to the teachers . Those are hours that can be spent on things like working on curriculum , putting effort into the education side things instead of administrative tasks .”
“ We ' ve only been on the Amazon platform for about two years , and we ' ve generated more than a half-million dollars in savings . And of course , we got hit with COVID and having a platform like that available to us was absolutely the best decision we could have made as far as being able to get the supplies we needed to move to a digital education program , which requires an entirely different supply chain than in school learning .”
“ You have to have the tools that students and teachers need for remote learning , which requires a whole different supply chain . And then , after labour day , we came back to the campuses . We now have about 81 % of our students back in the classroom . Again , that takes additional preparation of supplies such as gloves , cleaning and sanitation supplies , plexiglass shields for desks , different types of masks for students of different ages , sanitising products that aren ' t harsh on the kids ' skin yet still effective against germs , different types of filters for cleaner air supply , etc . It ’ s a long list of supplies with complex requirements , and it ’ s been quite a challenge for us , one that Amazon helped us to meet .”
166 November 2021