Contractors will get their first look at the solicitation for the newly consolidated Multiple Award Schedules in just over a month, the General Services Administration announced Aug. 28.
The agency announced its intention to take the current 24 award schedules and condense them into a single schedule back in November 2018, and has spent the time since conducting requests for information and town halls to get industry feedback on the planned move.
The final consolidated schedule solicitation will debut Oct. 1.
“The new solicitation with its simplified format is going to make it much easier for customers to find and purchase the solutions they need to meet their missions,” said GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Alan Thomas. “It will also make working with government easier by streamlining and simplifying the offer process for new contractors. One schedule means vendors no longer have to manage contracts across multiple schedules.”
The new solicitation marks the first phase of consolidating the award schedules, as GSA will still have to migrate contractors that currently have awards under the separate schedules and reconcile contractors that have multiple awards.
The planned merger is designed to help simplify the buying process on MAS, as agencies will no longer have to cobble together projects from multiple schedules and contractors will have only one program they need to understand when bidding for contracts under MAS.
The single schedule will still be divided into multiple large categories to organize the types of offerings available under MAS.
According to the announcement, the new solicitation will be posted to FedBizOpps and include the solicitation itself, an available offerings summary document, an attachment for each large category, regulations incorporate by reference and a significant changes document.
Prior to the Oct. 1 release, GSA plans to offer two webinars about the solicitation on Sept. 17 and 19, where the agency encourages contractors to ask questions about the upcoming changes.
GSA also created an Available Offerings and Requirements page on its site to provide contractors with templates and insight on the new schedule.
Consolidation of MAS is one of the four cornerstones of GSA’s acquisition reform plan, which also include development of an enterprisewide contract writing system, managing catalog data and progressing on a government e-commerce platform.
Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.
