WASHINGTON, DC—Construction-related materials and services, facility related materials and services and facilities purchases and lease are included in a new procurement initiative by the federal government.

In December the Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council (SSLC), which consists of representatives from the seven largest and highest-spending agencies, approved an initiative in which the federal marketplace would be divided into ten super categories of commonly purchased items as part of a larger move towards "category management," according to a recent blog post by the Office of Management and Budget.

One of these super categories is facilities and construction; the government spent about $72.1 billion in purchased goods and services in this category for FY 2013. All told, the government spent about $277 billion for the year.

Other categories are IT, transportation, travel, and professional services—these made up $270 billion, or two-thirds, of the total spent on goods and services that year.

The category management approach is meant to, as it does in the private sector where it is widely used among large companies, to facilitate smarter purchasing by the government. Typical strategies include identifying core categories of spend, developing expertise in these categories, sharing best practices and managing supply and demand flows.

The objective, OMB writes, is to increase efficiency and effectiveness while reducing costs and redundancies.

To that end, the government is establishing a team of experts for each category that will develop a common, government-wide strategy for smarter buying. An online portal called the Common Acquisition Platform (CAP), which is currently in development by GSA, will be the starting point for these acquisition categories. "Specifically, CAP provides government buyers with comprehensive information about existing contract vehicles from multiple agencies, current market trends and expertise, transactional data, and good practices that will help them navigate the cluttered acquisition marketplace," OMB writes.

GSA also plans to coordinate with the SSLC as it creates guidelines for executing this category management strategy.

Instant Insights /

Construction Part of Government's Category Management Initiative

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