Simplify Your Purchasing and Procurement Processes with MASYC’s Bidding Solution for Homebuilders using JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Bidding is a critical process for every homebuilder. A winning bid must be selected for each trade involved in constructing a home. To arrive at the winning bid, multiple bids must be requested and evaluated. This process begins by sharing specifications and bid forms with potential suppliers for each trade. Once bids are received, negotiations may be necessary, and sometimes specifications must be revised, or bids resubmitted. As you can see, the bidding process involves many moving parts, and without proper organization, it can be time-consuming and ineffective. Adding buyer-specific options to the mix only increases the complexity.

Every builder undergoes this bidding process when launching a new community, and occasionally for specific trades during the buildout of a community. Until now, there hasn't been a standard EnterpriseOne bidding solution to manage this process—enter the MASYC Bidding Solution. Years in the making, it is now available.

The MASYC Bidding Solution uses EnterpriseOne purchasing information to source supplier’s bidding data and SharePoint Online as a portal for them to access bidding specifications for their trade(s) and enter their bidding data. Data flows automatically between the systems, ensuring accuracy and efficiency.

Why MASYC’s Bidding Solution is right for your Purchasing Team

We have built the MASYC bidding solution with the specific needs of builders in mind:

Flexible Bid Structure
Supports both lump sum and itemized bidding.
Eliminates Manual Data Entry into JDE
Automatically adds winning bids to EnterpriseOne Bid and Material Item Pricing tables.
Supports negotiation
Allows bid to be resubmitted supporting negotiation between Purchasing Managers and Suppliers.
Increases Visibility of Project Status
Managers can view the overall status of the bidding project by community for each bid trade, with drill down capability.
No External Spreadsheets or Integrations Required
It is a product built specifically for homebuilders using EnterpriseOne by experts in the field.
Supports Both Existing and New Suppliers
Includes both existing suppliers that are already approved vendors and new suppliers based on trade associations.
Robust Reporting Capabilities using ReportsNow
Includes graphical representations of bid data to help Purchasing come to a decision using integrated ReportsNow reports.
Single Source of Truth / Less Systems to Learn
Built specifically for JD Edwards EOne, it eliminates information being kept in multiple systems easing the burden on your Purchasing team.

Bidding Solution Process Overview

The Bidding Cycle in MASYC’s Bidding Solution Includes the Following Stages:

Generate Bid Requests

a. Create Bid Requests: At the very beginning of the bidding cycle MASYC’s Bidding Solution shows its strength by providing a flexible bidding instruction tool that can be set up by geographical Area / or by Community. It is then used to tell the system how to create the bid request for each Bid Trade and Trade Code. For example, is the Appliance bid lump sum or itemized? And at what level should the Bid Request be created? By Area, Community, Phase, Plan, Elevation?

Since these bidding instructions are defined in advance, all the user needs to do to kick off the bid request for a community is to select the plans and trades to include. Builders can process bid requests for the whole community, or for specific groups of trades or a single trade. Performing this act automatically generates the bidding detail for each trade in the bid.

b. Assign Suppliers to a Bid Request The process to generate the bid request discussed above has the option to automatically add existing suppliers to the bid request based on the trades that were included. In addition, it can also automatically add new suppliers from a contractor pool also based on the trades included. You can either review the suppliers the system generated before proceeding, or you can choose to skip this step and use the system generated suppliers and automatically move on to the next step.

c. Generate Bid Request Spreadsheets The bid detail and supplier assignments are merged into EnterpriseOne’s Bid Staging Data. This data generates supplier-specific bidding spreadsheets —automatically and seamlessly.

d. Upload Bid Spreadsheets to SharePoint Online. For each supplier:
1) The bidding spreadsheets are uploaded to SharePoint Online.
2) An email is sent inviting the supplier to bid.
The customizable email includes instructions on how they can access their private SharePoint Online folder and complete the requested information in order to submit their bid.

Suppliers Complete Bid Requests

Using their email link, suppliers log into SharePoint Online to access their bidding spreadsheet, trade specifications, and general community specifications. This allows them to complete and submit accurate bids. All information in the spreadsheet other than the two columns the trade needs to complete are protected. A supplier can work on their bid over time and their work will be saved as they go. It is immediately submitted once they select both the “Complete” Bid Status and choose the “Ready to Submit” checkbox.

Purchasing Completes Analysis and Awards Bid Requests

Once a supplier completes their bidding spreadsheet, and indicates they are done in SharePoint Online, the Bidding Solution automatically retrieves the bidding spreadsheet and loads the data into the bidding staging area for that supplier. This is where the negotiation between the supplier and the Purchasing Manager begins.

If the supplier needs to resubmit their bid due to the negotiation, they use SharePoint online to indicate they are working on it again. This is as simple as unchecking the “Ready to Submit” box and resubmitting data. Once done they flag it as complete. Their bid is automatically retrieved again and reloaded into the staging area for the received bids. This cycle will repeat again as many times as needed for each supplier’s bid.

Bidding analysis reports are also available to compare supplier bids for each bid trade. The built-in reporting solution is ReportsNow, the only reporting solution built explicitly for JD Edwards. The Bidding Solution includes a set of robust premade reports at various levels of drill down. Since it is built with ReportsNow it is of course further customizable and additional ad hoc reports can be created for analysis by the Purchasing team.

Once the winning supplier is chosen for a trade, the Bidding Solution provides a process to have their bid automatically added to the EnterpriseOne purchasing database. It supports both lump sum bids and itemized bids. No manual data entry is required, allowing the purchasing team to focus on the most important part of their job, negotiating and securing suppliers in a timely manner.

Increase the Visibility of Bid Status by Bringing it Into Your JDE ERP

The MASYC Bidding Solution provides visibility into the bidding status for each active community within an area. Community and Construction Managers can drill into each trade to assess progress and identify delays. This allows them to: