The Enterprise Procurement System (E P S) from mjunction services ltd. is a hosted solution for procurement services. The underlying philosophy of this solution is to provide a common e-business hub, for multiple buyers and sellers to come together and conduct business without compromising individual requirements and relationships among the participants. The system has been designed to accommodate organization specific document and process requirements.
The solution offers value propositions for buyer organizations at different levels of I T adoption and readiness. For organizations at a nascent stage of I T adoption, the solution offers the Buyer Organization(s) the facility to create business documents on E P S. For matured organizations low-cost, secured and state-of-art technology components are used for the translation and transmission of business documents created in the legacy / E R P Systems of the Buyer Organization(s) to E P S. For data submitted by Seller(s) on the E P S, the system translates and transmits the data back to the Buyer System. Apart from standard administrative, authentication and security features, E P S encompasses modules for the management of business documents relevant to the procurement process. E P S commences with generation of a mandate (RFQ) for procurement in Buyer System. The functionalities of E P S include:
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Translation and transmission of the R F Q from Buyer System to E P S and providing view and other privileges on the same to Buyer(s) and Seller(s) depending on their respective roles and access controls |
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Modules for the submission and evaluation (including loading) of quotation by sellers and buyers respectively |
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Transmission of quotation information from E P S back to the Buyer System (after necessary translation) |
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Translation and transmission of other documents like Goods Receipt Note, Purchase Orders, etc. including Payment information from the Buyer System to the E P S and providing controlled access on the same to Seller(s) and Buyer(s) |
Payment to the Seller(s) can also be addressed seamlessly by E P S by leveraging the integration with a wide host of banks. E P S works on the philosophy of data translation and transmission between the Buyer System and E P S. The job of translating data of individual Buyer Systems from the semantics understood by their native systems to the language understood by E P S is entrusted with a small, low-end computing device, which we call the ‘Hand-Shake’ Server. The sole responsibility of this machine is to cull data out from the Buyer’s native data source, translating it to the format understood by the E P S and transmitting the same over the available network, using a reliable, secured and state-of-art software component known as Web Service and Extensible Markup Language. The reverse-flow of data, i.e. from E P S to the Buyer System is also managed by the ‘Hand Shake’ Server in a similar way.
Figure 1: Enterprise Procurement System Architecture
EPS, the one stop solution for both vendors and Buyer, can also be used for generating desired MIS reports. Also this system keeps all data safe and traceable for a prolonged period, helping the vendors to coordinate better business with the plant.
Vendors being an integral part of EPS, training them to use the system effectively, is important. These vendors also submit a legal declaration which makes the ebusiness transactions acceptable to all stakeholders.
EPS was nominated for the IT innovation of the year award in 2005 by NASSCOM.