Case Study: South African Medical Research Council achieves automated procurement and halved administrative workload with Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

South African Medical Research Council Reduces Administrative Workload Through Automated Procurement and Policy Enforcement

The South African Medical Research Council (MRC), a national science and health‑research institution, needed to streamline procurement and reduce admin burden so staff could focus on critical public‑health research. Their challenges included eliminating paper‑based requisitions, speeding purchase turnarounds, improving budget controls and regulatory compliance, standardizing purchasing workflows, and providing simple training to ensure fast user adoption.

MRC upgraded to Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, integrated financials with its legacy supply‑chain system, automated approval workflows with Requisition Self Service, and used Oracle User Productivity Kit for training. The single online system eliminated thousands of paper orders, cut transaction‑processing costs by 70% and overall spending by 15%, halved administrative workload, reduced payment‑processing time by 40%, shortened approvals from weeks to minutes, and trained 200 users ahead of go‑live.

South African Medical Research Council

Philip G. du Plessis

Divisional Manager, Project and Management Accounting Office