Integrated Acquisition Environment - Unifying

							Winter 2003                                                                  JFMIP NEWS


Integrated Acquisition Environment - Unifying
and Simplifying the Acquisition Process
Through Shared Services
http://www.jfmip.gov/jfmip/download/newsletter/winter2003.pdf

  The President’s Management Agenda is                 become a streamlined business process.
important to everyone in Federal government as         Considering that the Federal government is the
well as everyone in industry that supports the         largest purchaser in the world, spending
Government. The President included “expanding          anywhere from $190 billion to $220 billion
E-Government” as an integral component of the          annually on the acquisition of goods and
agenda for making government more focused on           services, improving the efficiency of the process
citizens and results. The agenda identified 24         will substantially reduce costs and make
initiatives that will simplify and unify federal       taxpayers dollars available for other programs.
agency work processes and provide one-stop             The Integrated Acquisition Environment is being
services to citizens through use of digital            developed under the management of the General
technologies. The plan for implementing E-             Services Administration (GSA), through the
Government is being led by Mark Forman,                collaborative work of five cross-agency teams
Associate Director of Information Technology           from 21 agencies. Some work one day a week,
and e-Government of the Office of Management           and others contribute virtually.
and Budget (OMB).                                        Government agencies utilize multiple methods
  The E-Government initiatives focus on multi-         of acquisition, work with thousands of suppliers,
agency projects that improve citizen services and      and purchase millions of different products and
yield the greatest performance gains. The              services. The intent is to develop crossagency
initiatives are categorized into several portfolios,   standards to eliminate duplication of efforts,
one of which, the Internal Efficiency and              enable exchange of data, and maximize use of
Effectiveness (IEE) portfolio, brings commercial       existing capacity. The Integrated Acquisition
best practices to key government operations,           Environment will build bridges between existing
particularly supply chain management, human            islands of automation. Five modules make up the
capital management, financial management and           Integrated Acquisition Environment:
document workflow. Overall, the initiatives                  · Business Partner Network (BPN)
represent an opportunity to effectively use                  · Intra-governmental Transactions (IGT)
federal funds to accelerate government response              · Federal Procurement Data System
times from weeks down to minutes. In addition,                   (FPDS)
the initiatives provide an opportunity to save               · eCatalogs
billions of dollars now spent by citizens,                   · Standard e-Transactions
businesses, and state and local governments in         Each module has its own project team and once
order to comply with paperwork-intensive               the work is finalized, it will be integrated into
government processes. The outcome will                 one acquisition environment.
transform how business is done internally and            The Business Partner Network (BPN) will
how the government interacts with its citizens         provide a web-enabled capability for identifying
and customers.                                         federal and industry trading partners
  One of the high payoff initiatives that E-           (www.bpn.gov). It will create a single source of
Government has embraced under the IEE                  information for buyers and sellers including
portfolio is the Integrated Acquisition                Equal Employment Opportunity compliance
Environment (IAE). The vision of this initiative       checks, size status, the Excluded Parties List
is an environment that focuses on the common           information, past performance evaluations, Small
acquisition functions/needs, such as the ability to    Business Administration’s ProNet, and
search for suppliers, and manage them as shared        Department of Defense’s (DoD) Central
services. By addressing these functions as             Contractor Registration (CCR). The BPN will
government-wide shared services, existing              include grantees, federal entities, and companies
acquisition capabilities within agencies can be        seeking to do business with the Federal
leveraged and the acquisition lifecycle will           government. There will be changes to the
Winter 2003                                                                JFMIP NEWS

Federal Acquisition Regulations in the upcoming      Integrated Acquisition Environment. The
months that will mandate the use of the BPN for      existing FPDS, which provides the central
(1) registration of vendors, (2) on-line             repository of statistical and management
representations and certifications, and (3)          information related to government acquisitions
electronic funds transfer data source. Each          was built in 1978. FPDS processes, summarizes,
agency will be required to determine the best        and correlates information on transactions, such
method to integrate BPN data into existing           as the product or service purchased, the dollar
procurement, financial and program systems. By       amount, the contractor’s name and address,
January 31, 2003, all Federal agencies that          whether the award was competitive or not, where
engage in buying and selling with other Federal      the item was manufactured or the service was
agencies are required also by OMB to be              performed, the government contracting office
registered in the BPN. The registration is a step    and much more. The system database contains
towards the future full electronic commerce          information on more than 5 million transactions
capability. Every agency has a designated            with a cumulative dollar value exceeding $2.1
Agency Registration Official who is responsible      trillion and dates back to Fiscal Year 1979. At
for the registration process. This effort will       this time, the data elements and functional
consolidate and standardize detailed information     requirements for the next generation system have
about an agency’s true trading partners that now     been identified and a solicitation is out for bid.
resides in many different locations. DoD,              Another massive undertaking in the
Treasury, National Aeronautics and Space             procurement process is searching through current
Administration, Department of the Interior,          contracts to determine if there is a suitable
Office of Personnel Management are already           existing federal contract that can satisfy a
using an early adopter’s version of the BPN.         buyer’s needs. The eCatalogs module is
  One of the essential systems that will be linked   developing an electronic directory of
to the BPN is the Federal Past Performance           Government Wide Acquisition Contracts
Information Retrieval System (PPIRS). It is a        (GWACs), Multiple Agency Contracts, and any
shared data warehouse of reviews of vendors’         other procurement instrument intended for use
performance on current or completed contracts        by multiple agencies to provide program
that is used in source selection. Four federal       managers and buyers information on existing
systems feed into PPIRS; this provides               contracts available for government-wide use.
acquisition officials information that helps         The goal is to help acquaint potential customers
determine whether a particular vendor would be       about possible options through organized and
able to perform satisfactorily on a government       faster access to basic information about these
contract.                                            vehicles. Right now there is no single place
  Intra-governmental Transactions (IGT) was          where this information resides. In the near future
addressed in the Fall 2002 issue of theJFMIP         a rule change to the Federal Acquisition
News (page 9,                                        Regulation (FAR) will be issued to mandate the
http://www.jfmip.gov/jfmip/download/newsletter       population of the directory for existing and
/fall2002.pdf). This component of IAE is             newly awarded multiple agency contracts and to
redesigning the process for reconciling inter-       encourage the use of this directory as part of
departmental transactions within Federal             acquisition planning. Agencies will be able to
agencies for the consolidated U.S. Government        begin submitting data into the directory in
Financial Statement. IGT straddles the line          January 2003. The directory is expected to be
between finance and procurement. Standard            fully populated by July 2003.
procedures and common reference numbers will           Standard eTransactions is the foundation of the
be required for storing data regarding ordering,     Integrated Acquisition Environment. The team
acceptance, and payment that will result in fewer    modeled the acquisition process to identify
problems with eliminations. For example, when        activities and information exchanges. Agencies
bills are paid by Treasury, common data              are validating these modules to ensure that all
elements stored in a central repository will make    possible data interfaces are included. All data
it easier to determine what account it goes to,      elements will be examined to ensure that they
who received it, and was it received, etc. The       have the same meaning and convey the same
goal is to eliminate the stovepiped ordering         information. A standard glossary is being
process that exists now between agencies.            developed to facilitate exchange of data between
  The next generation of Federal Procurement         and within agencies. From this module will come
Data System (FPDS) is one of the modules of          the interfaces that will be used by all Federal
Winter 2003                                                                JFMIP NEWS

agencies and vendors to successfully operate in              -Application interfaces via web services
the Integrated Acquisition Environment. The                   and integration broker technologies are
Integrated Acquisition Environment will be                    being developed that will allow agency
linked by several cross-cutting initiatives:·                 applications to request, send, and
       -The e-Authentication initiative will                 retrieve data.
        build and enable mutual trust to support     The Integrated Acquisition Environment
        the widespread use of electronic             provides a huge opportunity to leverage the
        interactions between the public and          government’s investment in IT as well as in
        government, and among government             human capital. Effective communication and
        agencies by providing common                 change management is critical to ensure its
        solutions to establish the identity of the   successful adoption.
        user. It ensures that only appropriately
        authenticated parties will be able to         For more information, contact Teresa Sorrenti
        access multiple eGov applications. ·         by email at teresa.sorrenti@gsa.gov or at (703)
       -A portal is under development for           872-8610, or Earl Warrington by email at
        individual access for use by those who       earl.warrington@gsa.gov or at (703) 872- 8609.
        are not working from a contract writing
        system or from a financial application. ·