Allows companies or individuals for that matter to register or make themselves known to a governing body.  Used to show fairness when soliciting contractors, based on selected criteria.

Can be used to gather information from companies, such as names of engineers that work for you, insurance limits, previous projects and size, and future project interest.  Based on these answers one can build queries to run when a project is ready for bid, to see who has not had a project the longest, who is best qualified, and who has the insurance limits to cover it.