How To Find Business

Introduction

Interested firms must help themselves by learning how DLA conducts its business, and by seeking out those purchasing offices (be it DLA or the Military Services) that buy the products and services they can supply.

The Federal Supply System

The Federal Government buys, stocks, and uses over 7 million items. As a prospective supplier, you should know some basics about the system that manages those items.

Federal Stock Class

The Federal Stock Class (FSC) is a code for items that are sold to the Federal Government. This field is available for DLA solicitations.  Each item in the Federal Supply System is assigned to a specific Source of Supply (SOS) for management.  FSCs indicate that DLA, General Services Agency (GSA), or Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) has been designated as the manager at the wholesale level for one or more consumable items of supply in the FSC.

Example:

National Stock Number

A National Stock Number (NSN) is a 13-digit number assigned to an item of supply.  It consists of the four digit Federal Supply Class (FSC) and the nine digit National Item Identification Number (NIIN).   A NIIN is a unique nine character code assigned to each item of supply purchased, stocked or distributed within the Federal Government.  The National Item Identification Number consists of a two digit National Codification Bureau number designating the central cataloging office (whether North Atlantic Treaty Organization or other friendly country) that assigned the number and a seven digit (xxx-xxxx) nonsignificant number.  The National Stock Number is arranged as follows: 9999–00–999–9999.

Example:  NSN 1610–00–624–7188—CAM and BEARING ASSEMBLY

NAICS Codes 

NAICS, the North American Industry Classification System, is a method of classifying groups of products.  NAICS is erected on a production-oriented or supply-based conceptual framework. This means that producing units that use the same or similar production processes are grouped together in NAICS.  It replaces the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) codes. http://www.census.gov/epcd/naics02/

NAICS was developed jointly by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to provide new comparability in statistics about business activity across North America.  The NAICS codes are maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau. To learn more about NAICS codes, visit the Census Bureau site.

Procurement Gateway 

In an attempt to provide unified information to contractors, the DoD Procurement Gateway was established as an integrated collection of automated systems providing oversight for the management of procurement data from Defense Logistics Agency Supply Centers. http://progate.daps.dla.mil/home/

The Procurement Gateway allows prospective government contractors to perform comprehensive and detailed searches against Request for Quotation (RFQ) and Award documents.  Flexible search options permit the user to identify RFQs and Awards using a variety of search criteria including solicitation, Purchase Request Number (YPI), and National Stock Number (NSN).  Users may also search the Procurement Gateway by providing keywords, data ranges, and Federal Supply Class (FSC).  All RFQs and Awards are stored in digital format and may be viewed online.  Please note that RFQs and Awards are available in Portable Document Format (PDF) and accessing them requires using the free Adobe Acrobat plug-in. 

The User Profile option allows registered users to create and customize searches against account-specific profiles.  Profile-based searches locate data that is important to you.  The Collection Download option allows users to search and collect files on RFQs by the FSC search criteria.  Users can collect multiple RFQs and have the Procurement Gateway zip those files up for you online, instantly.  To conserve server resources, Collection Download requests are limited to 4 MB per request.  Once the request has been processed successfully, users can download the zip file immediately, or access the URL within the next 24 hours.  An index file identifying each RFQ will be included in the zip file, and as well as in the e-mail to the user.

User Profile:  A profile of your company is necessary to obtain notices of new solicitations, provide on line quotes and to verify your company Automated Best Value System score.  Once the profile is completed, it may be several days before an ID number is provided.  The ID number is key to accessing and inputting information.  Complete the profile as soon as you have your CAGE code and are CCR registered.

RFQ search:  Enables a search for open RFQs by various methods, including Federal Supply Class (FSC), NSN, RFQ number, item description and issue/closing dates.  Multiple items are reflected in results and can be individually selected and reviewed.

Collective Download:  Another direct means of searching for RFQs by FSC.  The search can be tailored to recent time frames, the type of solicitation issued and the location issuing the solicitation.  Using the FSC provides listings for all items within an FSC for the specified period time.  From there, each item can be individually selected and reviewed.