Department of Defence Procurement Platform

Understanding the problem

To support the acquisition of non-material procurement (NMP), Defence had set up various systems, including six Access Databases, six Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, one Microsoft Word documents, and nine Defence Group Mailboxes, either established internally or obtained through Shared Services. The systems were used by different Directorates, where staff accessed them to record and manage their workloads. However, the main drawback of this approach was that the systems were disconnected, leading to a lack of centralised reporting or management. As a result, it became evident that the Department of Defence, needed to enhance the visibility of procurement and workflow processes for its staff, allowing for improved reporting capabilities across all Defence Services.

Ideation & research

The initial operating capability (IOC) was designed to evaluate the business case and determine if Defence would gain sufficient benefits from the disparate systems. With less than three weeks remaining until the IOC date, the Department of Defence raised concerns about a significant decision. The current projects within the Department of Defence were categorised into two types: Off Panel and On Panel. It was concluded that there was a need for an additional third project type that combined the functionalities of both.

Due to the new requirements, the team anticipated an additional 8-12 weeks in development time if the work was done solely by humans. However, by leveraging our platform engineering tool from our sister company, ‘Codebots’, WorkingMouse was able to take the Codebots reusable components and process it through the bot. Within less than an hour, all the required code for the third project type was generated and ready for testing. This project is an example of the benefits that come with implementing Jidoka, a software methodology WorkingMouse uses. Large organisations like the Department of Defence gain significant advantages from automation, especially in environments where there’s a high demand for standardisation and governance reuse.

The solution

This transformation has consolidated various legacy systems into a single material procurement platform. The scope of the project expanded to also include material procurement tracking. As a result, all procurement performed by the Department of Defence has been migrated and consolidated into a single cloud application built by WorkingMouse.

The project was a success, with expansion across the CASG area of Defence. Moreover, DoD procurement has complete transparency of all NMP Procurement across the branch. A comprehensive reporting pack has been built on the data captured in the application increasing the ROI of the solution by a considerable magnitude. This has allowed much better visibility for DoD as the application is able to track and report real time procurement spending. The project achieved success, expanding throughout the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) area of Defence. Furthermore, procurement within the Department of Defence now boasts complete transparency across all NMP Procurement branches. A comprehensive reporting package has been developed using the application’s captured data, significantly increasing the solution’s ROI. This enhanced visibility enables real-time tracking and reporting of procurement spending, providing the Department of Defence with much clearer insights.

The Defence sponsor for the procurement migration project received the CASG Commercial Centre of Expertise Award for Procurement Innovation. This acknowledgement highlights the solution’s focus on efficiency, resilience, and modernisation, all of which align with the Department’s ICT Strategy.