Standard operating procedure · PR3C · Procurement & Source-to-Pay
Bid Analysis
Analytical procedure owned by Sourcing & RFx in Procurement & Source-to-Pay. 5 numbered steps, 1 of them a person deciding and 4 of them agent work … more
Procedure code
PR3C
Analytical
Rule versions in force
v2.2 · v4.6
2 governing rules stacked over it
In force since
2026-03-21
Earliest effective date across those rules
Last reviewed
2026-06-01
Latest review date across those rules
Rules approved by
1
Director, Strategic Sourcing
Rule health
2/2
0 under review · 0 superseded
There is no document register behind this header. The version, the dates and the approver names are read off the governing rules this procedure runs inside, which is the closest thing the estate holds to a document control record. Nobody wrote these procedures. There is no document library behind this page and no Word file anywhere in the estate. Every procedure below is generated from rows this platform already holds: the line and its ordered stations, the owning team and the person accountable for it, the policy items bound to that team, and the governance gates seeded against the function. The steps, the owners, the gates, the approvers, the dwell times and the volumes are read straight off those rows. The sentences that join them together are generated. Read a procedure as the estate describing itself, not as a document somebody signed.
Purpose and scope
What this procedure is for and where it stops
To run bid analysis to one repeatable standard inside Sourcing & RFx, part of Procurement & Source-to-Pay. more
Entry condition
Runs analytical. Starts when a drift signal breaches tolerance.
Exit condition
The unit clears review, released by Director, Strategic Sourcing. more
In scope
- Every unit of bid analysis raised inside Sourcing & RFx, from the trigger below through to the final step.
- 4 of the 5 steps, which run without a person present.
- 1 decision that stops the line until a named person releases it.
Out of scope
- Anything outside the envelope set by the owning team. It leaves the line at a gate and becomes the named approver's decision.
- Work that belongs to another function. This line records no handoff, so nothing leaves it mid-flow.
- The 1 step carried on the shared AI GBS spine. They are done for this line but not by this function.
Who owns it
Runs the line
Sourcing Orchestrator
Accountable person
Director, Strategic Sourcing
The end of the escalation path. Above them sits Procurement Chief of Staff for the function.
That team’s remit
Owns sourcing event work end to end inside Procurement & Source-to-Pay. more
That remit describes the whole team, not this one procedure, so its counts are larger than the ones on this page.
Autonomy
75% now · ceiling 80%
Authoring, issuing and normalizing bids run without a human. more
The procedure, step by step
5 numbered steps · 1 of them stop for a person
A step is one station on the line. more
| No. | Step | Who does it | What happens | System of record | Time on the step | In flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Normalize bids GBSgbs | Requirement Capture Agent | Requirement Capture Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote. | Group ERP — Financials | 8.4 hrsstandard 11.2 hrs | 7 |
| 02 | Model total cost Agentworkflow | Supplier Longlist Agent | Supplier Longlist Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote. | Group ERP — Financials | 14.1 hrsstandard 17.4 hrs | 36 |
| 03 | Score Agentworkflow | RFx Authoring Agent | RFx Authoring Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote. | Source-to-Pay Suite | 11.9 hrsstandard 19.6 hrs | 4 |
| 04 | Draft recommendation Agentworkflow | Bid Analysis Agent | Bid Analysis Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote. | Treasury and Cash Management | 3.0 hrsstandard 6.9 hrs | 25 |
| 05 | Review HumanpolicyDecision | Director, Strategic Sourcing Releases: Director, Strategic Sourcing | Work stops. Director, Strategic Sourcing reviews what the line has produced and either releases the unit or sends it back. Nothing downstream of this step runs until that decision is made.Holds until: Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the sourcing event decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged. | Group ERP — Financials | 17.3 hrsstandard 33.6 hrs | 6 |
The swimlane
The same steps, laid out by who is holding the work
Three lanes: a person deciding, an agent working, and the shared services spine. more
Run the procedure
One unit walked along that swimlane on the happy viable agentified path
Press run and a single unit enters at station 01. Each station takes exactly the dwell this platform records for it and is held by whoever the estate says holds it. more
Nothing has happened yet. more
- The lanes are the recorded lanes. 1 of the 5 stations stop for a person and every one of them still does on this run.
- Every one of the 1 decision is still taken by the person who holds it. The happy path is that each one is released first time, not that it is skipped.
- The owning team is held to a 80% autonomy ceiling and this run sits at 68% unattended, inside it.
- 3 systems are attributed across the stations, and 0 of them are connected. Nothing in this run has been watched executing against a real system of record.
One decision, held by Director, Strategic Sourcing. more
- 05 Review — The last decision on the line. Something on every procedure ends with a person, so this one is never offered.
This is a run, not a forecast. more
Happy means nothing goes wrong: no station raises an exception, no gate sends the unit back, no rework loop fires and nothing sits in a queue between stations. more
The second clock is the allowance. more
A decision may be handed to the agent lane only if two things hold … more
The run reads the station rows only. more
What this run does not model: arrival patterns, contention between procedures for the same person, shift patterns, weekends, learning curves, and the cost of anything. more
Run it again, going wrong
The same unit, the same stations, broken the way the estate already records breaking
This is the same unit on the same stations, breaking. more
No break below was chosen. more
One play head, two tracks, the same scale. The clean run stops when it runs out of stations; the other one keeps going.
As written
5 stations, nothing waiting, nothing sent back
0 min of 2.3 days
now Normalize bids · Requirement Capture Agent · 8.4 hrs
As the ledger has it
the same stations, plus 4 categories the estate already counts
0 min of 4.3 days
now Normalize bids · Requirement Capture Agent · 8.4 hrs
What breaks, and where it is counted
No break below was chosen. more
What the two runs say together
4 counted categories land on this procedure. more
What this run cannot claim
These breaks are shown together on one unit so the shape of a bad day fits on one screen. more
The separation register records a duty conflict against a sub-function and a named post, not against one procedure. more
Two clocks run. Worked time is the sum of the time the work is actually being done … more
Roles and responsibilities
6 named parties
The responsibility grid is assigned by a rule, not lifted from a chart. more
| Party | RACI | Steps | Duty | Escalates to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sourcing Orchestrator orchestrator | Runs the line | 0 | Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more | Raises to Director, Strategic Sourcing when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor. |
Requirement Capture Agent agent A3% autonomy · ceiling A3% 91% clean · 4% overridden | Responsible | 1 | Runs the repeatable portion of sourcing & rfx inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls. | Escalates to Director, Strategic Sourcing when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor. |
Supplier Longlist Agent agent A3% autonomy · ceiling A3% 90% clean · 9% overridden | Responsible | 1 | Executes the sourcing & rfx step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage. | Escalates to Director, Strategic Sourcing when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor. |
RFx Authoring Agent agent A3% autonomy · ceiling A3% 93% clean · 2% overridden | Responsible | 1 | Executes the sourcing & rfx step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage. | Escalates to Director, Strategic Sourcing when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor. |
Bid Analysis Agent agent A3% autonomy · ceiling A3% 95% clean · 5% overridden | Responsible | 1 | Runs the repeatable portion of sourcing & rfx inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls. | Escalates to Director, Strategic Sourcing when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor. |
Director, Strategic Sourcing person | Accountable and responsible | 1 | Holds 1 decision on this line. more | Accountable to Director, Strategic Sourcing for the decisions held here. |
Decision points and escalation
1 places this procedure stops
05 · Review
17.3 hrsHeld for a named human when the unit exceeds the sourcing event decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.
Director, Strategic Sourcing
Handoffs out of this procedure
Nothing leaves this procedure for another function. It completes inside Sourcing & RFx.
The rules this procedure runs inside
2 governing rules
Sourcing & RFx Decision Envelope
activePR3-POL-200 · envelope · vv2.2
Agents in this lane may act without a human when the sourcing event sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. more
Approved by Director, Strategic Sourcing · in force 2026-03-21 · reviewed 2026-04-20
Binds Requirement Capture Agent, Supplier Longlist Agent, RFx Authoring Agent, Bid Analysis Agent, Clarification Agent, Total Cost Modeling Agent
US · Canada
Sourcing & RFx Evidence Standard
activePR3-POL-201 · evidence · vv4.6
Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. more
Approved by Director, Strategic Sourcing · in force 2026-05-02 · reviewed 2026-06-01
Binds Requirement Capture Agent, Supplier Longlist Agent, RFx Authoring Agent, Bid Analysis Agent, Clarification Agent, Total Cost Modeling Agent
Global · EU
Systems this procedure touches
3 named · 0 connected
System attribution is a rule, not a reading. more
| System | Vendor | Domain | Criticality | Steps | Connection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group ERP — Financials | SAP S/4HANA | ledger | critical | 3 | modeled |
| Source-to-Pay Suite | SAP Ariba | procurement | critical | 1 | modeled |
| Treasury and Cash Management | Kyriba | banking | critical | 1 | modeled |
0 of the 3 systems on this procedure is connected to the platform, and none of the twenty-six in the estate register is. 3 of them are marked as taking a write back, which is a property of the system, not a live path from here.
How it performs
End to end
2.3 days
Summed from the time each step sits, standard 3.7 days — running at 62% of the standard.
Touchless
56%
Agent share
80%
A week
51
In flight
78
Effort a week
1,037 human minutes · 2,244 agent minutes
Volume multiplied by the time on each step. more
Assurance over this procedure
4 governance gates sit above it
The twenty-four controls and eighteen exception classes in this platform are held at estate level … more
| Gate | What trips it | Who releases it | Clock | Waivable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purchase order above $25,000 approval | Any PO above $25,000 or off approved catalog or unbudgeted | Category manager | 1 business day | No |
New supplier or bank-detail change approval | Supplier onboarding or any change to payment banking details | Procurement controller | 2 business days | No |
Payment above $100,000 approval | Payment release above $100,000 | Finance controller | Payment run | No |
Single-source award or critical negotiation escalation | Single-source exception or any negotiation affecting critical supply | Chief Procurement Officer | 3 business days | No |
Next to it on the same team
Sourcing & RFx
What this document is and is not
These procedures describe the modeled estate. more
Actions
What is waiting on a person
What one procedure document gives you, and what to check before you treat it as the standard.
named approvers appear across the library
Every decision point on every procedure carries a job title, not a queue. more
steps in the library hand their unit to another function
A handoff is where a procedure stops being one team’s problem. more
controls exist in the estate, and they belong to no procedure in particular
Controls and exception classes are held estate-wide. more
Operations
What this desk is allowed to start
A surface that only reports is not operable. more
Trigger and bound
A procedure document prints purpose, scope, entry and exit, the numbered steps with the actor on each, the roles and their RACI position, the swimlane, the decision points and escalation, the handoffs, the governing rules with version and approver, the systems by rule and the timings. more
Live observability
What the record shows right now
The whole library, by lane, so a single document can be read against the estate it came from. more
Current distribution
2,748 steps
Is policy and strategy coming to fruition
Whether the written intent is holding here
Half. The document is complete and every actor on it is measured more
Not holding on the record
A procedure here carries a version, an approver, an in-force date and a last-review date. more