Please note: Nominations for the George Cronin Awards for Procurement Excellence are intended for state central procurement offices, and must be submitted by, or with approval from, the NASPO voting member (CPO) within your state. If you have questions about who can submit for the award, please contact Stephanie Schlueter at sschlueter@naspo.org
The submission template provides guidelines that will help you build a strong submission. The evaluation of the Cronin Awards consists of four categories, each one examining a different aspect of the project's impact and each weighed separately to provide an overall score (more details available in the subsections below). Submissions are limited to four pages, although optional supporting material can also be submitted as a separate document when needed to showcase images, examples, or documentation that is too large to fit within the four-page submission itself. Supporting materials should do just that—support and document the statements made and results described in the submission itself.
It is useful to committee members for a submission to begin with a short executive summary/introduction that describes the purpose and scope of the project and gives a brief overview of the implementation process. The introduction should also include a summary statement of the content of each of the four categories and a comment on the results of the project. If there is anything in the submission to which committee members should pay particular attention, it is helpful to mention it in the introduction. This executive summary should not exceed one page and is included as part of the total pages for the submission. Below are the categories you should ensure are covered within your four page nomination. Using the template above will make this a lot easier.
Resubmittal of past nominations is allowed, however it must meet the following criteria:
The Cronin Awards Committee will review the resubmission justifications to determine whether the submission will be included with those to be scored. If the committee determines the reasons for resubmission are substantial, then the entire document will be reviewed along with the other submissions. If, however, the committee determines, based on the justification, that a particular resubmittal does not merit inclusion in the group to be scored, the resubmittal will not be scored. All states involved with a resubmittal will be notified of the committee's decision to include or exclude their submission from scoring immediately following the committee's decision.
George J. Cronin was the State Purchasing Agent for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1925 to 1957, serving under 11 different governors. He was known as a trail blazer in the public procurement field and established the ground rules and operative procedures for centralized procurement within the Commonwealth. He was the first president of NASPO and is the namesake of the NASPO Cronin Club and the annual George Cronin Award for Procurement Excellence. NASPO was founded in 1947 at a meeting of state purchasing officials in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting was originally designed to seek ways and means for states to secure property distributed under the Surplus War Property Disposal Act of 1944. While at the meeting, Cronin urged the formation of an ongoing, formal organization of state purchasing officials as an effective vehicle to address specific public procurement issues and provide a network for resolving problems. The other attendees agreed and elected Cronin as president. He remained active in NASPO activities after his retirement in 1957. The Cronin Club evolved from an idea presented by John Dyer of Maine to form an organization of NASPO past presidents and name it after Mr. Cronin. The group met for the first Cronin Club Luncheon at the NASPO Annual Conference in 1970. In 1974, the Cronin Club opened the luncheon to any NASPO member who wished to participate instead of restricting attendance to the past presidents and it became an established feature of the NASPO Annual Conference. The Cronin Club decided to sponsor a “cost reduction” incentive program in 1977. This created interest among the states and encouraged them to share cost saving ideas with other states. The program has evolved over the past 30 years and adapted to the changing procurement landscape. The George Cronin Award for Procurement Excellence is recognized as a premier achievement for innovative public procurement and pays homage to a founder and the first president of NASPO for his devotion to improving governmental purchasing.
SEVERAL STATES HONORED FOR PROCUREMENT EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION
The Cronin Awards were presented at NASPO’s Annual Conference, September 23-26, in Long Beach, CA. The 2018 recipients are:
GOLD AWARD: State of Alaska, Continuous Improvement in Statewide Procurement
The State of Alaska’s Contracting Office conducted a statewide project by introducing continuous improvement techniques through multiple trainings to address and remediate inefficiencies in their procurement office and was implemented in three phases over the course of a year. In the demonstration of three continuous improvement efforts, the direct results indicated cost savings and time savings. As another result, the State of Alaska has developed a class titled “Process Improvement Toolkit for Procurement Professionals” for states that have an in-state procurement training program.
SILVER AWARD: State of Massachusetts, Local Government Enablement Team
The establishment of the Operational Services Division’s Local Government Enablement (LGE) team marked the beginning of a highly successful and expansive effort to increase local government customer engagement with non-executive branch customers, increase statewide contract spend, and embed the routine use of the new eProcurement system into major cities, small towns, and their school districts across the state creating substantial savings for all of these government entities.
BRONZE AWARD: State of Michigan, The Unrealized Transformative Power of Internally-Focused KPI’s in Public Procurement
The Michigan Central Procurement Services Division developed a map of KPI’s to measure the Division’s operation. The indicators were defined by staff and were tracked in the state’s central database. Current results and trends were/are shown on a continuous loop on a TV in the agency’s lobby. Selected KPI’s included solicitation lead time, customer satisfaction, hard savings, contracts in place before current contract expiration, supplier performance, and employee recognitions.
FINALIST: State of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Best Value Initiative
Pennsylvania Best Value Initiative, which resulted in the implementation of an electronic procurement solution, a streamlined RFP procurement process, and a method to increase SB/SDB participation all the while encapsulating quality, on time delivery, savings and return on investment. The combination of the JAGGAER solution and the streamlined RFP process which includes supplier forums, amped up supplier outreach, streamlined forms, reduction of meetings, more efficient question and answer process, adjective scoring, electronic reviews and submissions, real time data, configurable workflows, and a transferable tool kit of procurement resources.
FINALIST: State of Oklahoma, Innovate OK: The Market of Government Innovation
Innovate Oklahoma leverages procurement authority to create a synergy for innovation. By utilizing Career-Techs outreach ability to engage and promote new businesses and technology to address government issues/problems, a new avenue for engaging the vendor community has emerged. By having a lower cost of adoption as well as the right sizing of solutions to problems, it provides tremendous benefits to the vendors by gaining experience with the State.
Gold Award Winner, State of Alaska, Continuous Improvement in Statewide Procurement
Silver Award Winner, State of Massachusetts, Local Government Enablement (LGE) team
Bronze Award Winner, State of Michigan, The Unrealized Transformative Power of Internally-Focused KPI's in Public Procurement
Finalist, State of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Best Value Initiative
Finalist, State of Oklahoma, Innovate OK: The Market of Government Innovation
Other Nominations State of Connecticut, Bituminous Electronic Soultion
State of Florida, Automated Vendor Catalog Pricing Compliance
State of Florida, Mentor Protege Program
State of Georiga, Transportations Infrastructure
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Maximizing Procurement Budgets
State of Minnesota, Protecting Patients and Facilities Through Data Solution
State of Ohio, Non-IT Staff Augmentation Services
State of Ohio, Optimizing IT Procurements
State of Oregon, Enterprise Procurement Manual
State of Tennessee, Communication Subscription Tool
State of Tennessee, Knowledge Bursts
State of Tennessee, Service Partnership Agreements
Commonwealth of Virginia, A 21st Century Learning Design
State of West Virgina, Incorporating Cont Education Credits into Trainings
State of Wisconsin, Leveraging Agile Systems for Sole Source Procurements
State of Wisconsin, Using an Agile Development Process to Create eProcurement Systems
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