Western Australia's E-Procurement System to Save $100 Million
OCT. 17 ? An electronic procurement system developed by iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape alliance in Santa Clara, Calif., could save the government of Western Australia more than $100 million a year, iPlanet announced Oct. 16.
By Gail Repsher Emery, Staff Writer
OCT. 17 ? An electronic procurement system developed by iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape alliance in Santa Clara, Calif., could save the government of Western Australia more than $100 million a year, iPlanet announced Oct. 16.
Sun Microsystems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.; Solution 6 AlphaWest of Perth, Australia; DMR Consulting Group Inc. of Edison, N.J.; and iPlanet developed the Government Electronic Market in just three weeks. The group won the contract in August and had a Sept. 1 deadline for the first transaction.
"We've never been given such a tight deadline before. A project like this normally takes four to five months to complete, but GEM went live just three weeks after the contract was awarded," said Duncan Bennet, managing director of iPlanet.
The system automated and streamlined the government's spending on materials, operations and repairs. The system will be rolled out to all levels of government during the next 18 months.
The government spends about $5 billion a year on goods and services at a cost of $75 to $100 per transaction. Officials predict that the GEM system could reduce the cost to less than $10 per transaction.