June 2022

The Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) was recently awarded the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Secretary’s Appreciation Award for Management Excellence for its Contractor Acquisition University (CAU), an innovative educational program developed to meet the unique procurement training needs of contractors supporting the DOE enterprise.

The Secretary’s Awards Program is designed to recognize the career service and contributions of DOE employees to the mission of the Department and to the benefit of our Nation. The Secretary’s Appreciation Award was created to recognize employees and teams who demonstrate a sustained commitment to management excellence to make superlative contributions to the Agency mission.

In 2020, Contractor Acquisition University began as a collaboration between the SCMC, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and DOE Environmental Management (EM) contractor procurement departments, developing curriculum by taking a common, enterprise-wide approach to the essentials of acquisition. It is designed to provide standardized, consistent, and repeatable procurement training, beginning with previously available federal training and combining it with best-in-class commercial training that meets DOE contractor training needs. Eliminating the need for individual sites to develop their own training programs is both time-saving and cost-effective.

“I am very proud and honored to have worked alongside this team and together achieve this hallmark for the Department,” said Barry E. Ross, Procurement Analyst, DOE. “Congratulations for the exceptional teamwork and the accomplishment of launching this successful program.”   

CAU has proven to be a highly successful and sought-after program. Since the program launched there have been 3,217 course enrollments totaling more than 14,500 hours of training. There are 37 sites from across the DOE actively participating, including all six NNSA prime contractors, 13 of 17 EM locations, and several Office of Science sites. 

The Supply Chain Management Center, which was formed in 2006, is a service organization managed by Honeywell FM&T that works closely with DOE prime contractors and their procurement teams to leverage approximately $6 billion of annual spend, yielding cost savings and cost avoidance through lower prices and optimized business systems.