Technical Services make it a first in the public sector to establish a fully automated electronic trading environment in the supply chain between itself and its customers and partners at no added cost to the customer.

Together with one of its customers and sister organisations, Kent County Supplies (KCS), which sells educational supplies, stationery, office equipment and furniture to a widespread public sector customer base has, Techical Services has developed the systems using XML and MS.Net. The product has been designed to be as open and flexible as possible with an extensive use of web services enabling it to expand and adapt product functionality in line with changes in the business requirements.

Connection to the KCS website, www.kentwebshop.co.uk is either via Punch-out or Transparent-search. Punch-out is currently available for Capita's schools management systems SIMS/FMS and for the Agresso financial system as used by Kent Fire & Rescue Service. It is also under development for Integra. Transparent-search has been implemented for Kent County Council's Oracle I-Procurement implementation.

When using Punch-out, the customer is directed to www.kentwebshop.co.uk from within their own purchasing system. Customer validation enables them to be logged straight onto the web site. When the basket is complete, the customer proceeds to the checkout. However, instead of placing the order directly into KCS's back-office order fulfilment system, it is sent back to the customer's purchasing system as an XML document either via an e-mail attachment or to a web service of the customer's system to create a requisition.

With Transparent-search, the user does not visit the KCS website. Instead, Oracle I-Procurement passes a search request to the KCS search-engine. The search results are passed back to the customer along with the URL of the product images to create a requisition of goods to purchase.

The completed requisition is then processed through the controls and validation defined in the customer's purchasing system. The approved purchase order is then sent as an XML document, either directly to KCS's order processing web service, or as an email attachment. If sent via email, the order is automatically stripped from the email and processed by the same order processing web service which then enters the customer's purchase order directly into the KCS back-office order fulfilment system.

To complete the circle, XML invoices are subsequently sent to the customer. With the appropriate controls in place in the customer's purchasing system, the invoice is automatically matched with the original purchase order for payment.

All products available via www.kentwebshop.co.uk are UNSPSC encoded enabling the buying organisation to automatically categorise their spend for future analysis.

With the ever-growing need for greater efficiencies and improved customer service across the public sector, Technical Services is proud to be taking a lead and innovative stance in the critical area of procurement fulfilment.