In 1995, the National Procurement Institute, Inc. (NPI) established the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® (AEP) program, designed to recognize organizational excellence in public procurement. This prestigious annual award is earned by those organizations that demonstrate excellence by obtaining a high score based on criteria designed to measure innovation, professionalism, productivity, e‐procurement, and leadership attributes of the procurement organization. From nine recipients in 1996 to approximately 200 in the most recent years, the AEP continues to be recognized as the premier award in the public procurement profession.

NPI is now offering a unique opportunity for eProcurement solutions to become an AEP® Certified platform. This program will allow users of your system to bypass the arduous application criteria related to eProcurement and instead verify their use of functionality from the list of AEP® certified vendors.

Download the application here.

Successful completion of the application process and annual certification fee will allow approved vendors to market their solutions as AEP® Certified, a great benefit to those agencies seeking points in these criteria.

To become certified in one or both criteria, providers must show that their system meets the following requirements:

-Electronic Sourcing

AEP compliant systems must include the following functionality:

1. Online vendor registration

2. Automatic vendor notification of solicitation opportunities

3. Posting of the solicitation online for vendor review

4. Online vendor responses

5. Posting of the resulting solicitation tabulations and award documentation.

-Electronic Evaluations and Automated Scorecard

AEP compliant systems must include the following functionality:

1. Online review and scoring of proposals

2. Digital notices to evaluators of required evaluations and deadlines

3. Digital scorecards that automatically calculate individual scores, provide for comments and notes, and provide a means to qualify and/or rank respondents.

Certification applications will be accepted through December 31st of each year for the following application cycle (generally February 1 through May 15). The cost to apply for certification will be a one‐time fee of $1,000. Applications that are accepted will then be billed at a cost of $15,000 annually to remain certified. Certified systems will be listed on the annual AEP application, allowed to market the platform as AEP® Certified and will be granted a non‐exclusive, non-transferable, limited, revocable royalty free license to use, reproduce, distribute, and display the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® logo.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.