Over a decade of value for the team at the University of Pittsburgh
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Rosslyn Platform
- Spend Analytics
- Procurement Analytics Solution
Tech Stack
- Data Analytics
- Self-Service Tools
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Procurement
Services
- Data Science Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
The University of Pittsburgh, a prestigious educational institution, has a dedicated Strategic Sourcing team responsible for managing supplier spend and procurement processes. The team, led by Michelle Smith, Director of Strategic Sourcing, and supported by Lauren Leonard, Sourcing Analyst, and Maureen Beal, Associate Vice Chancellor for Financial Operations, focuses on optimizing supplier relationships, increasing revenue opportunities, and creating savings for the university. With a significant annual supplier spend of $800 million and over 16,000 suppliers, the team requires robust tools and solutions to manage their operations effectively. The university's commitment to efficiency, accountability, and accuracy drives their continuous search for innovative solutions to enhance their procurement processes.
The Challenge
In the early 2000s, the Strategic Sourcing team at the University of Pittsburgh faced significant challenges with their homegrown, spreadsheet-based spend categorization tool. The system was inefficient, time-consuming, and heavily reliant on suppliers responding to information requests. This made it difficult to accurately categorize supplier spend and manage data effectively. The team struggled with accessing and reporting on their metrics, which hindered their ability to make informed decisions and achieve their goals. The need for a more dynamic, efficient, and user-friendly solution became increasingly apparent as the team sought to improve their productivity and reporting efficiency.
The Solution
The University of Pittsburgh's Strategic Sourcing team adopted the Rosslyn Platform, specifically its Spend Analytics and Procurement Analytics Solution, to address their challenges. The platform provided immediate benefits by offering a centralized, holistic view of all supplier data, enabling the team to access and report on metrics quickly and efficiently. The Rosslyn Platform's dynamic and user-friendly interface allowed the team to categorize spend accurately, identify efficiencies, and increase productivity. The platform's powerful analytics capabilities enabled the team to prioritize projects, conduct supplier diversification analysis, and handle supplier normalization. Additionally, the platform facilitated the identification of suppliers with and without contracts and allowed for the definition of custom dimensions. The adoption of Rosslyn's solution transformed the team's procurement processes, making it easier to meet key metrics and deliver real value to the university.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
IoT platform Enables Safety Solutions for U.S. School Districts
Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district.
Case Study
Revolutionizing Medical Training in India: GSL Smart Lab and the LAP Mentor
The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.
Case Study
Implementing Robotic Surgery Training Simulator for Enhanced Surgical Proficiency
Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.
Case Study
Edinburgh Napier University streamlines long-distance learning with Cisco WebEX
• Geographically dispersed campus made in-person meetings costly and inconvenient.• Distance-learning programs in Malaysia, India, and China required dependable, user-friendly online tools to maximize interaction in collaborative workspaces.• Virtual learning environment required a separate sign-in process, resulting in a significant administrative burden for IT staff and limited adoption of collaboration technology.
Case Study
8x increased productivity with VKS
Before VKS, a teacher would spend a lot of time showing a group of 22 students how to build a set of stairs within a semester of 120 hours. Along with not leaving the teacher much time to provide one-on-one support for each student to properly learn carpentry, it also left a considerable amount of room for error. Key information would be misinterpreted or lost as the class was taught in the typical show-and-tell way.
Case Study
Scalable IoT Empowering GreenFlex's Sustainable Growth
GreenFlex, a company that supports sustainable development, decarbonization, and energy efficiency, faced several challenges in its quest to expand its business. The company needed to deploy a robust and sustainable IoT technology to support its growth. It was crucial for them to monitor and control devices at customer sites in a safe and reliable manner. They also needed to integrate devices across a range of communication protocols and gather and act on data to meet efficiency targets. GreenFlex had previously built IoT capabilities into its digital platform, GreenFlexIQ, to monitor and manage customer sites remotely. However, they soon realized that they needed a new platform to support their ambitions. They needed a platform that could scale to connect more devices for production management and make it easier for the operations team to manage devices in the field.
