Customer Case Study | Transportation

About The Port of Seattle

The Port of Seattle is the 4th largest container shipping port on the west coast, and also operates seaport facilities serving the cruise line and fishing industries. The Seattle Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) operated by the Port of Seattle is the 18th largest domestic airport. The Port of Seattle has embarked on a multi-year, multi-billion dollar capital expansion program for Sea-Tac to facilitate increasing demand for air transportation.

The Challenge

The Port of Seattle retained eBid Systems in July of 2000 to help them launch their Electronic Bid System initiative. With document reproduction and distribution costs averaging $7,000 to $8,000 for each of their major construction projects, plus express delivery bills approaching $100,000 annually, they were convinced that an Internet delivery system was the answer.

The eBid Solution

Launched in 2000, the Port of Seattle's vendor portal hosted by eBid Systems has been continuously improved to provide a one-stop web site for communications with the Port's architects, engineers, contractors, and service providers. The Port's vendor portal serves as a sophisticated pre-qualification system for maintaining a consistent process for vendor pre-qualification and provides a centralized data warehouse for vendor information for internal users.

Key System Metrics

• Procurement Value: $1.7 Billion
• Number of Solicitations: 374
• Document Management: 7.3 Gigabytes
• Registered Vendors: 7,390

Key Benefits

• Bid document distribution cost savings exceeding $300,000 annually
• Standardized and centralized vendor pre-qualification database
• An estimated 85% of procurement budget managed through eBid system
• Created a standardized, auditable procurement process