Bill Williams, Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation (LWCC)
Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation (LWCC) is a private, nonprofit mutual insurance company. It was created by a constitutional amendment in 1991 to save the State’s failed comp system by tackling the factors that led to its demise and stabilizing costs.
Located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of the LSU Tigers, LWCC is the State’s largest workers’ compensation carrier, providing coverage to approximately 23,000 policyholders.
Bill Williams has been an employee of LWCC for thirteen years. His official title is Purchasing Facility Manager, and he is responsible for all purchasing within the facility – that could mean everything from leasing equipment to carpet cleaning. His department consists of a total of six employees, three of whom are directly involved in the purchasing process.
Bill said, “Purchasing has always been centralized. That’s because prior to my employment here, I worked at a bank, and its purchasing function was centralized. My boss (at the bank) left to join LWCC. Within a short period of time, he persuaded me to join the organization and work for him. I like to tell people I’ve had the same boss for twenty years!”
How purchasing works at LWCC
“Though we were centralized from the beginning, we were still doing everything manually, like typing all of the purchase orders. If we had to go back to look at something on a purchase order, we had to literally dig through boxes to find the document. Researching something was very time and labor intensive, and we needed to find a better, more efficient method of conducting our business.
Our IT Department provided us with some software companies to evaluate. We looked at five or six companies and researched them thoroughly. For our needs, Bellwether’s Purchasing Software offered an excellent fit.
Bellwether Purchasing Software has solved our research problem. Now, if we need to look at an old purchase order, we simply access it through Bellwether. Vendor files are also easy to access, and items are easy to find on Bellwether Purchasing Software. Once we set up the Master File,
implementation was painless. We have about 300 vendors, and we produce about 1,300
purchase orders a year, so automating this process was very important to our organization. We use the Purchasing, Receiving, Requisitions, Inventory, and A/P Interface modules, and we are pleased with the ease of use and functionality of all of them.
With Bellwether Purchasing Software the whole process is vastly improved. Compared to past purchasing practices, like researching purchase orders, Bellwether has made purchasing a snap!” Bill concluded.
