PURCHASING

PURCHASING AND CONTRACTING SERVICES

MISSION STATEMENT AND VALUES 

Purchasing and Contracting Services (PCS) is a team of business professionals dedicated to public service and advancing the University’s (UO’s) mission. This service unit empowers campus stakeholders to accomplish their goals while successfully balancing efficiency, innovation, and risk. PCS accomplishes this mission by: 

• Obtaining the best value for UO and its stakeholders.  
• Providing timely, creative, strategic, and practical business services. 
• Fostering a climate of good faith, fair dealing, and compliance. 
• Promoting access to UO business opportunities.
• Partnering in the development and execution of UO initiatives.  

PCS uses the following operational values to frame policy decisions, workflow systems, procurement activities, contracts, oversight duties, and customer interactions:  

• Obtain best value by minimizing the total cost of ownership of goods, services, systems, policies, and processes. 
• Understand that change is constant and inevitable.  Plan for and make incremental, managed change. 
• Continuously improve. 
• Utilize systems to make rule-based decisions; utilize people to make decisions that require discretion and thought. 
• Know that risk cannot be eliminated, only mitigated.  Avoiding all risk eliminates all opportunity.
• Be proactive, not reactive. 
• Approach conflict from a “Me→Us→You” perspective. 
• Value everyone’s contribution, and understand outside perspectives. 
• Communicate in a manner accessible to our audiences. 
• Always offer solutions to add value.   

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  

The University of Oregon’s Purchasing and Contracting Services (PCS) Office is the conduit that connects UO to its supply chain. PCS is responsible for establishing and administering the University’s purchasing policies and procedures consistent with federal, state, and University rules and regulations. 

PCS is responsible for supporting the procurement of approximately $100 to $150 million worth of goods, services, and software that UO requires to operate annually. This does not include construction contracts which are processed by UO’s Office of Design and Construction. 

In FY23 PCS processed 5,840 individual transactions. These transactions include Procurement Card (PCard) actions, purchase order (PO) and contract reviews, initiating and managing POs and contracts, and managing complex Requests for Proposals (RFPs).  PCS creates and manages purchasing procedures and collaborates with campus departments to evaluate and procure the products and services that offer the best possible value. PCS personnel also oversee contractual partnerships between UO and service providers by preparing, negotiating, and reviewing contracts. 

UNIVERSITY POLICY

PCS operates under University Policies IV.09.05 and IV.09.06, and implements those policies under UO’s Purchasing and Contracting Procedures.  PCS is also responsible for ensuring that purchases comply with Federal Uniform Guidance under 2 CFR 200.317-327.  

PCS works with its customers, which are all UO departments, to support the acquisition of goods and services in the following ways:  

• PCS delegates purchasing authority to individual departments to use PCards, issue POs, and execute some template contracts for goods and low-risk services under $25,000 in total value.  
• PCS reviews, drafts, and negotiates all contracts or purchases of goods or services that require the review of third-party terms, custom contract drafting, or are valued over $25,000.  
• PCS manages all informal and formal procurement and sourcing activities for which UO is required to collect bids or proposals under either UO Policy or Federal Law.  
• PCS manages UO’s PCard program. This includes issuing PCards, managing roles for the use and review of PCards, providing PCard trainings, and auditing PCard transactions documentation.  
• PCS operates UO’s procure-to-pay systems (known as Duck Depot) which allows end users to purchase goods from preferred vendors via integration between Duck Depot and vendor “punch-out” e-commerce sites.  All preferred punch-out vendors are covered under master agreements so that no formal or informal procurement activities are required before purchasing.  
• PCS manages UO’s Historically Underrepresented Business (HUB) outreach program.   

UO Departments interact with PCS by attending PCS trainings to receive delegated authority for submitting purchase orders, contracts, and procurement activities that PCS then processes.   

SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS

The university’s reportable carbon emissions in the 2017-2018 academic year were 55,991 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (MTCDe) (University of Oregon – Office of Sustainability, 2018). The portion of UO’s supply chain that is processed through PCS but not reported in the standard emissions inventory represents an estimated additional 18,664 MTCDe’s — 25% of the university’s total emissions. That amount is the equivalent of 247 tanker trucks filled with gasoline.

Sustainability means ensuring that UO’s suppliers—and the products and services they supply—deliver value for money and generate benefits not only for UO, but also for the environment, society, and the economy. As the entity that selects vendors and products, and which creates purchasing policy, PCS plays a meaningful role in mitigating UO’s GHG emissions. As such, PCS encourages the evaluation of products in terms of best value. Best value mandates that consumers consider impacts and attributes beyond the dollar amount of a procurement. For example, UO staff may consider a product’s useful life, energy consumption, and environmental impact. Purchasing personnel evaluates vendors on the basis of their sustainability practices and seeks to work with vendors who are working to reduce their own emissions. 

PCS is currently performing the following sustainability efforts:

• Increasing the amount and value of sustainable products available on its e-procurement site, Duck Depot.
• Encouraging staff to purchase through Duck Depot, where PCS can gather data on UO’s purchasing footprint and more easily negotiate supplier agreements that improve sustainability and lower prices.
• Engaging stakeholders, including Facilities Services, Custodial Services, and Solid Waste and Zero Waste, to initiate enterprise-wide sustainability practices.
• Engaging with Information Services (IS) to establish measures that increase sustainability in IS purchasing, management, and equipment disposal.

PCS has accomplished the following sustainability objectives: 

• Made recycled printer paper an affordable option available to UO purchasers and partnered with UO Print Services to institute a university-wide managed print services program to strategically target paper use reductions and eliminate printers that produce significant waste.
• Partnered with UO Information Services (IS) to mandate that computer hardware vendors provide standard computer options with lower wattage power units, thereby reducing energy consumption campus-wide.
• Partnered with Campus Planning and Facilities Management (CPFM) to standardize janitorial and custodial products to reduce waste and use sustainable products where appropriate.  
• Increased awareness among campus stakeholders of purchasers’ ability to prioritize sustainable purchasing within PCS’s Procurement and Contracting for Goods and Services at UO.

GOALS AND ACTION ITEMS 

GOAL: Increase the selection of sustainable options when sourcing goods and services at UO.  

ACTION ITEMS:

• Require vendors responding to competitive procurements to provide information about sustainability practices and sustainable options.  
• Include a scoring category in RFPs that awards points to vendors who are providing meaningful sustainable options for goods and services.  
• Provide more training to campus and PCS staff on prioritizing sustainable purchasing options.
• Work with PCS’s existing HUB outreach program to provide training to small businesses on how to set themselves apart by providing sustainable options.   

GOAL: Implement best practices for reducing GHG emissions and reducing environmental impact in large-scale organizations.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Develop a plan for measuring scope 3 greenhouse gas data for UO’s supply chain.  
• Bring a Budget Advisory Group (BAG) request forward in FY25 to fund a scope 3 project.  
• Determine the behavior changes that meaningfully impact emissions based on collected data; evaluate which of these are within PCS’s purview.

 GOAL: Incorporate a resiliency mindset into PCS’s policies and practices.

ACTION ITEMS:

• Engage with campus experts to learn about and better anticipate future climate-related market volatility.
• Create a list of “pressure points” in the supply chain that are particularly sensitive to market volatility arising from climate change.
• Include considerations for long-term resiliency when crafting statements of work and specifications for goods and services.