Some agencies such as NASA which was one of the early adopters of Internet-based EC already keep track of their EC usage but the information is not collected on a governmentwide basis in any unified way. One challenge said Ken Stepka a procurement analyst at NASA will be tracking the volume and value of transactions done over the Internet. The new legislation will give agencies more flexibility in the type of EC technology they use which will in turn encourage the use of the EC in the government observers said. We've broadened the scope of EC so there is no one mandate to say this is how to do business '' said Paul Grant co-chairman of GSA's EC acquisition office. Part of OFPP's task mandated in the legislation will be to define what this single face will be.
Some efforts are under way to develop the single-face concept.
We're spending tens of millions of dollars on catalogs and a great deal is spent on extracting data in different formats '' said Ron Parsons director of CommerceNet Northeast. We have to let people get information in a standard way. The company piloted the program with the Procurement Service Center Division at the Department of Health and Human Services. For agencies such as NASA the flexibility to choose any EC product and service would be welcome.