# Presentation: 686625

## The Direction of Acquisitions & LogisticsPerspectives by VA,  GSA and DSCP

## VA National Acquisition Center

**General Overview**

**Current Process & Programs**

**New Initiatives**

**Wrap Up**

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***VA National Acquisition Center***

## General Overview

- Reports to VA’s Office of Acquisition & Logistics
- Acquisition & Logistic Support
- Locations in Hines, IL and Denver, CO
- 186 Employees
- Over 1,800 Active Contracts
- Over $13.6B in Annual Sales Transactions
- Most Programs Opened to All Federal Agencies

**Notes:**
The National Acquisition Center or NAC reports to VA’s Office of Acquisition & Logistics.  
NAC has two locations – Hines, IL and Denver, CO.  NAC is located in Hines, Il on the VA Hines Medical Center Campus, just south of Loyola Medical Center, Maywood, IL and the Denver Acquisition & Logistics Center or DALC. Jim Sandman, who is in the audience, is the Director of the DALC
With 186 full-time employees, their primary responsibility is to establish and administer national contracts and  programs, which provides various health care related products and services to VA, its patients and other government agencies.  
 Currently there are over 1,800 active contract vehicles available that have generated approximately $13.6 Billion in annual sales transactions.  Over 67% of our awards are made to small businesses. 

 The majority of our contract programs are designed with the input and participation of our customers throughout the acquisition process.
Our customer base includes – Federal activities including but not limited to: VA’s Veteran Health Administration, Army, Air Force, Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Health & Human Services, Indian Health Service, Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Prisons, CDC, FEMA, US Postal Service, Immigration & Naturalization Service, and Customs.
Other entities approved by Congress, as mentioned in my prior speech, like American Red Cross, Howard University, Virgin Islands, Northern Marianna Islands, District of Columbia, World Health Organization and so on also have access.   
Another group is State Veteran Homes, which have established a sharing agreement with a local VA medical center , can use VA-awarded contracts.

And just recently, state, county, city and local government have access to our Federal Supply Schedules contracts  in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.   

## Acquisition Programs

**9 Schedules**
**Multi-Year, Multiple Award**
**Commercial Products & Services**
**Open to All Federal Agencies**

**Pharm, Med/Surg **
**& Subsistence**
**Just-in-Time**
**Next Day Delivery**
**Uses VA’s FSS, National, and local contract sources**

**Joint VA/DoD**
**CMOP**
**Patient Direct - Prosthetic & Orthotic **
**Emergency Support**

***Acquisition Programs***

**Standardization**
**  ****Pharm**
**  ****Med/Surg**
**  ****Prosthetics**
**High Tech Medical Equipment**

**Notes:**
FSS – NAC has nine schedules: Pharmaceuticals; Dental Equipment & Supplies; Medical Supplies & Equipment; X-Ray Equipment and Supplies; Mobility Devices including wheelchairs; Invitro Diagnostics, Reagents & Test Kits; Clinical Analyzers, Cost-Per-Test, Reference Labs; and Professional and Allied Health Care Services.  The FSS program, which  awards commercial products and services,  is a multiple award (more than one contractor is awarded under a Special Item Number (SIN) category). The solicitation for each program is “open and continuous” meaning there is no closing date and offers may be submitted at any time.  FSS solicitations are issued as RFPs and are indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity type of procurements. Contractors can add and delete products, decrease and increase pricing, and offer new SIN categories, as long as they are applicable to that schedule, at any time.

National Contract Program – encompasses pharmaceuticals; IV solutions, medical surgical products; prosthetic and orthotic items like aids for the visually impaired, hearing aids hearing aid parts and repair service, assisted devices, prosthetic socks and orthotic softgood items;  and highly technical medical equipment. Most national contracts,  national BPAs and BOAs are requirement type, negotiated procurements.  High usage, consumable type items are identified.  Requirements from the customers are leverage to achieve best pricing, terms and conditions for all customers.  There is normally one winner and resultant contracts are mandatory for those customers whose requirements were included.

Prime Vendor Distribution program covers pharmaceuticals, medicals/surgical supplies, and subsistence items. VA’s PVs have access to all VA awarded FSS and national contracts items and provide just-in-time delivery.  Ordering and deliveries can be done 6 days a week with order confirmation in less than two hours. Deliveries can be made directly to the floor or service.   Significant savings have been noted in the areas of inventory, warehousing, administration and resources.  

Customer specific programs were designed meet that customer needs.  VA/DoD joint contracts allow both Departments to reduce duplication of effort while leveraging their requirements and purchasing power to achieve best results.  The Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy or CMOP program provides acquisition support for ancillary items and services required by VA’s seven CMOP.  DALC provides prosthetic and orthotic items such as hearing aids, assistive devices and soft goods. Our emergency support programs provides acquisition and logistics support for pre-planning, during and after any natural and man-made disaster.

## Acquisition Process Flow

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***Acquisition Process Flow***

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**Notes:**
The general acquisition process is as follows:
Our customers identify a need.  The customer develops an acquisition plan.  We work with them to define the requirements, terms and conditions through market research.  A solicitation is developed and upload to FedBizOpps.gov.  The majority of our solicitations are issued as negotiated or Request for Proposal.  We can chose to do a best value procurement, where technical factors and past performance, as an example, carry more weight than price.  Once offers are evaluated and a winner is identified, an award is made.  Once awarded, contract is then administered, sales transactions and performance are monitored through contract close-out.   We also perform other types of acquisitions such as competitive Blanket Purchase Agreements or BPAs against a FSS contract or Blanket Ordering Agreements, which are established with Ability One (previously know as JWOD) facilities.  
Performance periods for awarded FSS contracts are typically five years.  National contracts are one year with four option periods or two year base with three two-year option periods for a total of eight years.
VA’s procurement hierarchy for all VA facilities is as follows –
National Contracts
National BPAs
FSS
Then local or regional contracts

## OAL New Initiatives

**Identifying more potential **
**candidates **

**Creating a Center for Acquisition Innovation**

**OAL New Initiatives**

**Notes:**
VA’s Office of Acquisition & Logistics will be experiencing  regrowth through revitalization and creation of new components.  They will have offices in Washington, DC; Ft. Detrick, MD; and Austin, TX.  They hope to open within the next year another facility in Fredrick, MD.  

Center for Acquisition Innovation. OAL will be assembling a cadre of acquisition professionals who will be responsible for contracting for VA emergency supplies and services.  OAL also will be developing  acquisition personnel for future placement throughout OAL and VA by creating a comprehensive 1102 intern program.  

Strategic Sourcing, a Presidential  Initiative, has been embraced by VA, and especially OAL.  To date five commodities –overnight mail, cell phones, printers, office supplies, and copying machines, have been identified by GSA.  VA has joined their requirements with other federal agencies to achieve better pricing and terms.  OAL now will begin looking at commodities within VA that can become viable candidates.  Jeff Ryan will be presenting more on this subject tomorrow morning in Session 5B.

## NAC New Initiatives

**Enhance categories, Expansion **
**of products & services**

**FSS offer process**

**Sales reports, PL, offers, and  payment submissions**

**NAC New Initiatives**

**Notes:**
What’s on NAC’s horizon?  Other than the reorg within OAL. NAC is working  on –
Developing a web portal that will allow contractors to submit sales reports, Public Law (pharmaceuticals), offers, and payments electronically.

Expanding and enhancing VA’s Federal Supply Schedule categories.  Also looking at expanding categories for telemedicine.

 Looking at streamlining FSS offer process to improve the time it takes from receipt of offer to award .  We are looking at how GSA has streamlined the process, which has improve the time from over 180 days to less than 45 day, and use their best practices to revamp our internal process.

 Internal reviews to improve efficiencies and processes, some of which may improve how you do business with us.

## Wrap Up – 

**Communication is Vital**

**Nurturing our Federal Partnerships**
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***Wrap Up – ***
***What we would like to leave you with...***

**Industry is an Integral Part**

**Customer Satisfaction = Success**

## General Services Administration

**Introduction**

**Current Practice and Programs**

**New Initiatives**

**Wrap Up**

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**General Services Administration**

## Department of Defense, Defense Logistics Agency and DSCP Medical

**Introduction**

**Current Practice and Programs**

**New Initiatives**

**Wrap Up**

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**Department of Defense, Defense Logistics Agency and DSCP Medical**

## Introduction

- Medical Supply Chain, Defense Supply Center Philadelphia
- Two Components:
- Supplier Operations
- Customer Operations
- 280 person staff
- $4B in annual sales
- Worldwide logistics support program
- “Every day, every crisis”
- Logistics partnerships

## Current Practice and Programs

**Logistics “work-horse”**
**Next day delivery**
**World-wide reach**

**Web based ordering**
**Program flexibility**
**Customer-friendly**

**Depot inventory**
**Special management**
**Readiness enabler**

**High tech equipment**
**Highly perishable commodities**
**“****Universal backstop”**

**Current Practice and Programs**

## New Initiatives

**Forward presence**
**Executive Agency**
**Increasing “op tempo”**

**FFMIA Compliance**
**Logistics Integration**
**Unified system**

**Competition and privatization**
**New logistics challenges**

**Concern over abuses**
**Economy Act**
**Fiscal law compliance**

**New Initiatives**
**Department and Agency**

## New Initiatives

**Part of growing **
**DoD trend**
**GAO interest**

**HIFAC Partnership**
**VA NAC, DSCP and Industry**

**Increased scrutiny on J&As**
**Recompeting orders over $100,000**

**Fully Joint VA/DoD Effort**
**NEMA participation**
**State of the Art**

**New Initiatives**
**DSCP Medical**

## Wrap Up

**Warfighter Requirements **

**Expansion of VA Partnership **

**DoD Enterprise**

**Mission First!!**

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**Wrap Up**
**What I want to leave you with**

## Questions

## Thank you

***Steve McManus***
***DSCP***
_***stephen.mcmanus@dla.mil***_

***Craig Robinson***
***VA National Acquisition Center***
_***craig.robinson@va.gov***_

***Thank you***

***Michael Sade***
***General Services Administration***
_***michael.sade@gsa.gov***_