Spotlight on Facilities Procurement

The Facilities Procurement team consists of six hard-working, dedicated staff who support the university’s mission, and more specifically, that of Facilities, by ensuring that the goods and services critical to keeping the infrastructure in working order are procured in the most cost-efficient manner and at the best value.

The team is primarily responsible for purchasing materials and services that support the Facilities Management Operations Trades and Capital Projects teams. Their work includes buying university furniture, training customers on processes and procedures, and striving to continually expand on the team’s synergy with their customer base.

Associate Director Chris Bartolotta shared that some of the team’s most significant recent accomplishments have included implementing new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software (AssetWorks) and streamlining processes, allowing their small staff to become more efficient.

The AssetWorks project was a significant lift on numerous units in the Facilities Division, most of all the ITS team. The planning and evaluation process started in January 2019, with weekly steering committee meetings to plan and review the process and requirements from backend accounting. It included discussing the procurement of goods/services, warehouse inventory, FTE time, ordering procedures, work order processing, trades jobs assignments, charge back to departments for services rendered, and much more. That process lasted several months. Subsequently, an RFI was distributed to potential service providers to solicit information regarding their capabilities, and then RFP was sent out to solicit bids from selected service providers. From there, selected bidders provided demonstrations of their proposed systems. Once the Yale team evaluated all bidders and narrowed them down to identify the top bidders, a service provider (Aim AssettWorks) was awarded the contract.

The implementation took about a year and a half from contract signing to the official “go-live” date of July 1, 2022. During this time, there was constant development of our requirements by both AssetWorks and the Facilities ITS team. All units that would interact with the system rigorously tested it to expose any bugs in the process. 

In the coming months, many projects are in the works, including new capital projects in the Science Hill and Hillhouse areas, a new Project Controls System, ERP replacement, and a partnership with University Properties Tenant Services to support their needs.

Kudos to the Facilities Procurement team for all their hard work and accomplishments!