Governmentwide online procurement system announced

A new Web site, FedBizOpps.gov, will serve as the single governmentwide venue for federal buyers and sellers to hawk their goods, services and buying opportunities, under a suggestion from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) announced in the Federal Register Monday.

Under the proposed rule federal agencies will have until October 1, 2001 to begin participating in FedBizOpps.gov.

FedBizOpps is the new and jazzier name for Electronic Posting System (EPS), a pilot procurement project led by the General Services Administration to create a single point of entry for electronic purchasing. A 1999 General Accounting Office report raved about NASA's online procurement model and suggested that a multi-agency electronic posting system be developed based on it.

The pilot project now involves NASA, the Departments of Transportation, Treasury and Commerce, and others. It is still under development, but early feedback has been encouraging, OFPP has reported.

According to OFPP, "this improved model will give uniform access to all available information. No longer will sellers notice an announcement and follow a difficult process of gathering the full picture-it will be there. "Searching" for related information will become a technique of the past."

The transition to FedBizOpps is designed to be easy for agencies, even those that already have their own electronic posting system in place. According to OFPP, agencies won't have to reinvent their procurement wheels.

EPS "is a distributed application using a distributed database. The design allows the interconnection with rather than the replacement of agencies existing posting systems," the FedBizOpps Web site explains.

Under one option, agencies can use an interface between an existing system and the governmentwide EPS. This solution allows agencies to continue using existing systems for electronic posting while contributing information to a single place for vendors.

Deidre Lee, former OFPP administrator, told a House Small Business Committee panel in April that the single point of entry effort would be build on other electronic procurement initiatives of recent years.

In 1996, for example, the Commerce Business Daily Network posted electronically all open market contract opportunities previously published only in the print version of Commerce Business Daily. But the design of CBDNet did not provide easy access to solicitations and other important information, Lee said. FedBizOpps will include information on all government contracting opportunities valued above $25,000.

Under the proposed rule, agencies would no longer publish separate procurement notices in Commerce Business Daily. Instead, FedBizOpps.gov will forward the information to CBD in the appropriate format. The site will also:

• Create a central point for all business information, including notices, solicitations and other acquisition material.
• Create a searchable index of all procurement opportunities that can also be downloaded.
• Include an automatic e-mail notification feature that provides information about contracting opportunities for specific supplies, services or agencies.
• Link to the procurement marketing and access network (PRO-Net), a database used to increase small business awareness of government contracting opportunities.