NASA kicks off strategic sourcing initiative

NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) is leading an effort to apply strategic sourcing principles to purchases of laptops, desktop computers and other similar workstation products.

SEWP is leading the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative Workstation Commodity Team to develop ways to quickly compare various contracts that offer similar products and services, find a standard set of configurations to leverage demand and reduce costs, and identify spending management best practices to boost strategic sourcing’s usefulness, according to a new request for information.

SEWP and the commodity team already has collected and analyzed responses from federal agencies about defining common configurations for standard desktops and laptops with upgrades. Now the team wants industry’s input.

In the RFI, the team says it’s critical to hear from industry about what the government buys. The team wants to know agencies’ commonly requested configurations and specifications, such as specific terms, conditions, and contract clauses of interest.

In the RFI, the team has asked, among other topics, if companies would consider extending a three-year warranty to four or even five years and also deliver a product in roughly 20 days. The team is also asking for recommendation on aggregate pricing or unit pricing and approaches to sharing data, such as contractor program performance, cost and cost savings, and technology refreshments.

SEWP released its RFI May 20. Responses are due May 29.