HUD to consolidate acquisition systems

Management

HUD to consolidate acquisition systems

HUD hired Compusearch under a $4 million deal to improve the procurement business processes and integrate data with other HUD systems.

Federal News Network Staff

October 29, 2010 5:12 pm

2 min read

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
Federal News Radio

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is about ready to kick off a project to consolidate multiple acquisition systems.

HUD awarded Compusearch a $4 million contract to implement its Integrated Acquisition Management System.

Under the five-year deal, Compusearch will replace HUD’s legacy system with its online PRISM application. Through PRISM, HUD will be able to reduce the number of manually intensive processes and integrate acquisition data with its financial management system, the company said in a release.

“HUD is the latest cabinet-level agency to modernize their acquisition practices with a goal of improving transparency and accountability,” said Compusearch CEO Reid Jackson. “Heeding OMB’s call to demonstrate early success and show measurable results, HUD’s leadership is committed to showcasing that government can make enterprise wide improvement within one year, and within budget.”

On the federal IT Dashboard, HUD states the initiative will bring in a commercial contract writing system “that addresses HUD’s contract requirements and integrates with the Central Contractor Registry, Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation and the HUD Integrated Financial Management Improvement Project, expanding the benefits of the current procurement-accounting interface.”

HUD planned to spend $4 million on Phase 1 of the project in 2010, but reported through the dashboard that it spent only $139,000.

“HUD’s fundamental business issue is that the acquisition environment is fragmented from both a system and process perspective, characterized by the use of dual procurement sys with limited or no interoperability to the department’s multiple financial systems,” the agency writes on the IT Dashboard. “The HUD Inspector General and Chief Financial Officer have identified numerous weaknesses in the current procurement systems including inadequate financial controls.”

The agency believes the new system will reduce the time it takes to prepare requests for proposals by 50 percent, reduce the time for the total procurement process by 10 percent and reduce the error rate by an additional 15 percent to 20 percent.

HUD chief information officer Jerry Williams rates the program a 7.5 out of 10.

“HUD chose Compusearch to modernize a patchwork of siloed legacy systems into a fully integrated acquisition management system that can receive and disperse data across the enterprise,” Jackson said. “Compusearch will provide its PRISM software as well as the change management expertise to fully modernize. This approach will give HUD real-time visibility, provide key BI and insights for complex planning, and enable informed decision-making.”