GSA Releases New RFI: Reopening Multiple Award Schedule 75
A posting on GSA Interact on December 20th, 2016, announced that the General Services Administration (GSA) released a request for information (RFI) in order to obtain feedback regarding their intentions to reopen Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 75: Office Products and Supplies to new offers in 2017. Schedule 75 has been closed to new offers since October 2010 and its reopening marks another significant growth in the MAS program in the last year. Discussions between GSA and the industry/vendor community have been taking place for several months and the RFI incorporates feedback taken from the industry day that was held on May 24th, 2016 as well. Peter Han, the GSA Northeast Caribbean Supply and Acquisition Center director, stated that, “We received great comments from our customers, various industry associates, wholesalers and manufacturers… and have come up with ideas that we think with make MAS 75 a new and improved solution for purchasing office supplies.” He also reiterated that the “major goal of the new solution” remains coherent with GSA’s overall mission to increase small business participation; specifically by 5%. It is important to note that although Schedule 75 is being re-opened, the current Special Item Numbers (SINs) will not be subject to this change. Instead, a new enhanced SIN 75 2XX will be created to accept new offers while the existing SINs 75 200 and 75 85 will remain closed; however, SIN 75 200 will be revised to match the scope of the new SIN 75 2XX.
New Enhanced SIN 75 2XX
SIN 75 2XX will be a unique SIN that encompasses office products, services, and features from the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative for Office Supplies (FSSI OS3) solution. As described in the RFI, “The new enhanced SIN 75 2XX will incorporate all of the Best In Class (BIC) features of FSSI OS3 while also using the robust structure of MAS 75.” Some of the BIC features of FSSI OS3 include: enhanced vendor requirements, improved pricing and savings, and vendor accountability. GSA has also incorporated higher-level technical evaluation factors, which are graded on a go/no-go basis, in order to raise standards. A few of these standards include: AbilityOne-certified Contractor; demonstrated capability to provide real-time order status to GSA Advantage!; ability to deliver to OCONUS locations; and a more stringent Letter of Supply (LOS). Also, a Contract Access Fee (CAF) of 2% will be applicable. Unlike the other SINs in Schedule 75, SIN 75 2XX will also have an established opening and closing cycle with the open season being every 24 months.
Revised SIN 75 200
In order to maintain continuity between the SINs in Schedule 75, GSA is revising the existing SIN 75 200 (Office Products) and eliminating SIN 75 210 (Office Services) as a separate entity. The two SINs will be combined to create the new SIN 75 200 (Office Supplies and Services). The objective in this revision is to match the scope of SIN 75 200 with that of the enhanced SIN 75 2XX. Along with including both products and services, there are a few other key characteristics of SIN 75 2XX that SIN 75 200 now mimics. For example: a stronger Letter of Supple (LOS), Formatted Product Tool (FPT) reporting, and Transactional Data Rule (TDR) reporting. It is also important to note that contractors cannot be on the revised SIN 75 200 and enhanced SIN 75 2XX simultaneously.
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