How MWAA transformed end-to-end procurement with Odyssey Contract Management and what it means for organizations still managing contracts the hard way.
Managing procurement for two major airports is, in the words of Mike Giardina at MWAA, like “operating a small city.” You have construction projects, design contracts, goods, services, and vendors across every discipline, all moving at once, all requiring oversight, compliance, and accountability.
For the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the organization responsible for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport, that complexity is not hypothetical. Their Procurement and Contracts Department oversees purchasing across every category the airports touch. The volume is significant. The stakes are high. And for years, the tools weren’t keeping up.
That changed when MWAA launched its Contract Lifecycle Management System (CLMS), built on Odyssey’s Contract Management Solution. What followed is a story that should resonate with any procurement or legal leader still fighting spreadsheets, email chains, and inconsistent processes across their organization.
The Problem with Manual Contract Management
Before a system like this, procurement teams in complex organizations face predictable and costly challenges.
Contracts live in shared drives, inboxes, and institutional memory. Solicitation documents get created from scratch each time, with no standard templates and no clause library to draw from. Routing for review and approval is ad hoc. Vendor interactions require back-and-forth outside any formal system. Audit trails are reconstructed after the fact, if they exist at all.
The result is inconsistency at every stage, risk buried in process gaps, and staff time consumed by work that should be automated.
For an organization operating at MWAA’s scale, that’s not just inefficient. It’s a governance problem.
One System for the Full Lifecycle
MWAA’s CLMS is now their contracting system of record, integrating with Workday Financial and HR and covering the entire procurement lifecycle from pre-solicitation through closeout.
Every stage of the process lives in one place.
Pre-Solicitation through Award
Procurement planning, solicitation creation, evaluation, and award are standardized and automated. A solicitation clause library and standard templates mean documents are generated consistently, every time. The online public procurement portal gives contractors a single place to download solicitations and submit responses, eliminating the informal back-and-forth that creates risk.
Execution and Administration
Contract negotiation, compliance tracking, task orders, change orders, invoices, and expenses are all managed within the system. Intelligent workflows route work automatically based on business rules, so the right people see the right things at the right time.
Closeout and Renewal
Automated contractor performance reviews and structured closeout processes mean nothing falls through the cracks at the end of a contract term.
The result is a system that doesn’t just digitize paperwork. It enforces consistency across every contract, every team, and every procurement type.
The Numbers That Make the Case
MWAA shared the operational proof behind the platform. The scale is significant.
- 1,400+ contracts administered to date, with 200+ in the past 12 months
- 4,900+ requisitions processed to date, with 1,350+ in the past 12 months
- 900+ solicitations completed to date, with 200+ in the past 12 months
- Nearly 500 active MWAA users spanning supply chain, COTRs, forecasters, and executive staff
- 800+ contractors self-serving through the vendor portal
These aren’t pilot numbers. This is a production system operating at enterprise scale, with the metrics to prove it.
Benefits Delivered
During the Q&A, the MWAA team was direct about the business benefits realized since launch. Three themes came through consistently.
Time savings and efficiency were cited as the number one outcome. Automating document creation, routing, approvals, and vendor interactions eliminates the manual work that previously consumed procurement staff time and slowed everything down.
Standardization was equally important. When nearly 500 users across multiple departments are touching procurement processes, consistency isn’t optional. The CLMS ensures that every solicitation, every contract, and every review follows the same process regardless of who initiates it.
Aligned processes across the organization mean that procurement is no longer fragmented by department or team. Everyone works from the same system, the same templates, and the same rules. That alignment is foundational to both operational efficiency and compliance.
Built for Organizations That Can’t Afford Gaps
Odyssey’s Contract Management Solution is designed for exactly the kind of environment MWAA operates in: complex, regulated, high-volume, and high stakes.
A comprehensive security framework provides role-based access across internal teams, vendors, and contractors. Full audit trails are created automatically, documenting every change, approval, and action across the contract lifecycle. For organizations in regulated environments, that auditability is not a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have.
The platform integrates with existing systems through standardized integration points. It doesn’t require ripping out what’s already in place. It connects to it, centralizes it, and governs it.
And because it’s built on Odyssey’s platform, new workflows, templates, and process changes can be configured in days, not months.
Is Your Organization Running on Manual?
If your procurement or legal team is still managing contracts through email, shared drives, or a patchwork of disconnected tools, the cost is real. Staff time, risk exposure, and the inability to answer a simple question like “where does this contract stand right now” all add up.
MWAA’s story demonstrates what’s possible when the full contract lifecycle is automated, standardized, and governed in a single system. The efficiency gains are measurable. The compliance posture is strengthened. And the team can focus on the work that requires human judgment, not the administrative burden of managing documents.
See what Odyssey Contract Management can do for your organization.