Friction Point: Assembling and distributing an RFx can take days or weeks. According to the Institute for Supply Management, sourcing and procurement can consume as much as five months of a product introduction cycle. Recent surveys have shown that up to 25% of that time is wasted on interacting with suppliers on drawings and other information that can’t be represented in a text document. Additionally, time is spent assembling and distributing documents for an RFQ. Getting these documents, and subsequent changes, to potential suppliers is slow, costly, and ineffective. This process generally takes weeks, escalates costs and causes significant delays.
Traditional methods of document exchange, such as e-mail, do not solve the problem. Engineering drawings, blueprints, and schematics are too large and too complex to effectively share as a simple document attachment. There is no way to maintain revision control, and once a file is e-mailed, your organization no longer has control of its intellectual property.
ePlus Breakthrough Solution
With DigitalPaper XE, all documents, including engineering drawings and blueprints are quickly and easily assembled into an electronic RFx then made broadly and securely available on the Web. Now hundreds of RFxs can be sent in the time once required to send a single package, and for a fraction of the cost. With DigitalPaper XE:
Suppliers/contractors view documents online and collaborate with buyers online.
If authorized, suppliers/contractors print copies of selected documents or drawings as needed at the same high-resolution quality of the source document.
Purchasing agents/engineers notify suppliers/contractors of changes and updates immediately during the evaluation process and post-bid award.
