ART - NASPO's Assessing State PPE Procurement During COVID-19: A RESEARCH REPORT

The document discusses the application of the Procurement Maturity Model in the context of emergency response and disaster preparedness. It presents two generic examples, represented by Figure 1 and Figure 2, which illustrate the different levels of procurement maturity in a state. Figure 1 represents a state at Level 2 of procurement maturity, while Figure 2 represents a state at Level 5, which is the highest level of maturity. The overall maturity rating for Figure 2 is 5 out of 5. The document provides information about the organizational context of the state procurement office, stating that it reports to the Secretary, who reports to the Governor. The procurement is centralized and responsible for everything except higher education purchasing and construction. The office has planned involvement in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and has several warehouses available across the state. It consists of 54 people with diffused supply chain competencies. In terms of disaster response and emergency team governance, the Level 5 state invests in a dedicated emergency planning committee that creates extensive documented plans with pilot runs and simulation analysis. The state also strategically stockpiles critical goods and has detailed deployment plans for critical suppliers and distribution service providers. The stock is traced to the item level with robust rotation plans to ensure the freshness of supplies. The state conducts a formal supply chain pandemic risk analysis to identify critical weaknesses and uses standardized supplier segmentation logic to identify critical and bottleneck suppliers. Joint action plans are defined for critical workers and suppliers to educate and train personnel involved in emergency operations. The state also has a fully integrated IT plan with redundancies and work-at-home plans that have been tested and validated. The document highlights that higher maturity in state procurement leads to a higher position in the state chain of command, centralized decision-making responsibilities, and a higher number of employees with strong competencies in supply chain management. The state procurement office is involved early in emergency operations and participates in strategic decisions. In contrast, lower levels of procurement maturity result in a lower position in the organizational chart, limited decision-making responsibilities, and less structured and detailed disaster preparedness components.