In order to ensure the timely acquisition of all goods and services needed to carry out the mission of CBP, the Procurement Directorate launched the Acquisition Improvement Initiative (AI2). The Procurement Directorate is interested in examining both traditional and cutting-edge methods for enhancing general performance by designing a future acquisition environment that embraces both government and commercial best practices.
Through our support of AI2 the Ambit team analyzed existing Procurement Directorate processes and presented recommendations for improvement. Ambit then helped design and implement the launch of an acquisitions wiki pilot project. The acquisition wiki provides an online collaboration space in which CBP contract officers and internal clients may prepare contracts in a single tool, alleviating storage and data location issues associated with the current email-based process.
Due to the strength of Ambit's analysis and planning to date, the Procurement Directorate asked Ambit to map business process, capturing and documenting Procurement Directorate methodologies to identify lessons learned and best practices, and documenting leadership forum processes and associated templates and playbooks. Accurately and comprehensively mapping out standard processes and facilitating internal communication will allow the Procurement Directorate to provide efficient and consistent service and best support department goals.
The acquisition wiki pilot program will launch in October 2012, at the beginning of the federal fiscal year. Ambit will support the wiki tool during the course of the pilot program. Upon the conclusion of the project, participants will be interviewed and procurement activity lead time (PALT) scores will be measured and compared to PALT scores from the current acquisitions process. Recommendations on expansion, modification, or abandonment of the acquisitions wiki tool will be presented to the Procurement Directorate leadership.