Customer Highlight on Eastern Idaho Technical College

Sandi Dingman, Eastern Idaho Technical College

Eastern Idaho Technical College (EITC) is a state-funded, public two-year technical college that provides high quality education programs that meet the diverse needs of the citizens of its nine county service area and the State of Idaho. The college champions technical programs, customized industry training and retraining, development and basic skill instruction, workforce and community education, economic development, distance education and student services. EITC has 850 full-time students and a large segment of part-time students. It also provides workforce training for over six thousand individuals per year. How Purchasing Works at EITC Sandi Dingman is the Purchasing Agent for EITC. She has been a Bellwether customer since 1993. As the sole purchasing agent in her department, her responsibilities include overseeing all purchases, contracts and leases – school wide. She is also responsible for ordering goods and services for 110 full-time employees and 30 part-time employees. Because the school offers such a diverse curriculum, “goods and services” cover everything from facility maintenance and support to instructional supplies and equipment. Sandi’s spend budget per year is about $3MM, and several hundred vendors are used to meet all the school’s supply demands. Business Purchasing Cards were recently implemented on campus for small dollar purchases, and EITC produces approximately one thousand purchase orders per year for high dollar major purchases. Prior to becoming a Bellwether customer, EITC was on a manual, paper system. “That’s right,” Sandi commented. “It was the typewriter and I generating a whole lot of paper!” In time, an in-house system was developed by a faculty staff member, and, while very cumbersome to use, was in place for 1¹/2 years. EITC meets Bellwether Sandi said, “Because the system was so difficult to use, ‘faculty buy-in’ did not happen. They simply would not use the system, so we knew we had to find something that was easier. We reviewed several packages, including some that had to be custom built. About the same time we were evaluating different packages, Bellwether contacted us, and, because of that, we decided to look at Bellwether Purchasing Software. We requested trial, and we let a select group of faculty test it. Their conclusion was that not only was it very easy to use, it also exceeded our expectations in getting the job done.