LVAIC Joint Purchasing Program Maximizes Campus and Consortial Resources

March 26, 2018, @ 8:00 AM

Since 1972, LVAIC colleges and universities have partnered on joint purchasing for cost savings and resource maximization on a variety of services and products. With these processes, the LVAIC community has optimized its purchasing power with high volume opportunities that leverage our collective volume and expertise.

The LVAIC contracted vendors have been sourced and vetted as the ideal fit for the needs of LVAIC campuses. These suppliers often offer vendor rebates back to member colleges as an incentive for utilizing the contracted pricing structures, including W.B. Mason, Fisher Scientific, and more.

LVAIC’s joint purchasing options span a wide variety of institutional expenses from office supplies to booking travel, environmental waste removal to janitorial supplies, and much more. These agreements allow campuses to collaborate on large cost savings and capitalize on joint purchasing capabilities so that member resources can be reallocated to different programs and the collective financial burden of necessary purchases can be eased on behalf of the colleges. The purchasing partners involved in this program include the LVAIC colleges: Cedar Crest College, DeSales University, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, and Muhlenberg College; as well as the purchasing partners, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Northampton Community College, Neumann University, Alvernia University, Reading Area Community College, Delaware Valley University, and Albright College.

Moreover, the benefits of this joint purchasing program extend beyond the colleges themselves to the employees of the campuses with the Employee Purchasing Program. This program allows specific discounts to members of the LVAIC community and the LVAIC purchasing partners due to their colleges’ membership in the consortium. These discounts include travel, home and office supplies, furniture repair, and much more. A more specific outline of these discounts is available on the LVAIC Joint Purchasing Program page of the LVAIC website.

In addition, the LVAIC Purchasing Community of Practice collaborates far beyond joint purchasing. This group meets on a monthly basis to discuss best practices, share vendor information and contacts, and partake in professional development programming around purchasing policy. For example, the February 2018 LVAIC Uniform Guidance Seminar ameliorated this collaboration when representatives from Baker Tilly offered advice and counseling on compliance with federal purchasing administration. More information on this event is available here.