Purchasing agent reports 180‑day solicitation target, Oracle Cloud launch and vendor‑outreach plan

At a meeting of the Procurement Standards Board, Purchasing Agent Dennis reported staffing gains, a new Metro 180‑day solicitation target and progress on the Oracle Cloud procurement system, saying the office is seeing early improvements in cycle times.

Dennis said the department received approval in the 2026 budget for four of the five resources it requested — three procurement buyers and one BAOO resource — and brought those hires onboard. "So 12 is now our target," he said, referring to the NIGP benchmark of about 12–13 solicitations per buyer as the staffing objective that allows work‑flow changes to take effect.

The report centered on three areas: resources, cycle‑time improvements and the Oracle Cloud implementation. Dennis described a Kaizen effort begun in June 2024 that produced a "Metro 180" 180‑day solicitation target after mapping a seven‑step process and identifying where time was lost. He said the team has started to meet timing goals and is displaying metrics publicly via a dashboard outside the procurement office.

On the Oracle Cloud deployment — which Dennis said launched Jan. 2, 2026 — he credited project leads Terry Ray and Scott Ferguson and described three rounds of testing that used more than 1,000 test scripts. To prepare, the division stopped accepting solicitations Oct. 27, 2025, asked departments to complete submissions by Dec. 11 and to have purchase orders approved and receipts entered by Dec. 19, 2025, to allow data cleanup and validation.

Dennis identified several new Oracle features that address known issues in the prior system, including automatic removal of duplicate suppliers, easier addition of multiple commodity codes to solicitations and improved handling of attachments and supplier access to solicitation materials. He described training as a major effort: about 993 people attended pre‑go‑live training and roughly 300 more have completed post‑go‑live sessions so far.

Board members responded with praise and questions. A board member identified as Janine interrupted to thank procurement staff, saying the work to achieve the 180‑day target is "amazing." In a metrics exchange, Ben summarized recent cycle‑time changes: "from Q1 to Q2, we went from 216 on ITBs to 134," while noting RFPs remain above the target (from 338 to 317).

Dennis also described Metro Nashville's participation in the Harvard Bloomberg "Leading Cities Procurement Reform" cohort led by Partners for Public Good. Drawing on peer city lessons, he proposed three workstreams to increase competition and supplier responses: simplify solicitation language, improve coordination with departments (including a sourcing‑coordinator pilot), and expand vendor outreach. He cited an example where a manhole‑cover solicitation sent to 596 suppliers produced one response as evidence of weak competition and set a north‑star goal to increase responses by 25%.

On internal capacity, Dennis proposed a pilot to create department "sourcing coordinators" — super‑users trained to act as liaisons, reduce repeated onboarding, and speed procurement work. He said a focused, roughly 40‑hour curriculum is planned for pilot participants. Vendor outreach will be led by Javal Watson and include targeted conferences, supplier rounds, and renewed pre‑COVID practices.

Dennis said the team aims to have the three workstreams and pilot materials ready by July 1. The meeting adjourned after the board approved two sets of minutes earlier in the session.

The board did not take additional formal action on the initiatives during the meeting; Dennis presented plans and secured board discussion and endorsement of the direction.