On May 1st , the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the formal restructuring of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) to strengthen the acquisition workforce and aid overall procurement consolidation. The new FAS structure consists of five new offices:
1) Office of Assisted Acquisition Services (Assist);
2) Office of Centralized Acquisition Services (Centralize);
3) Office of Acquisition Solutions Development (Create);
4) Office of Shared Services Delivery (Deliver); and
5) Office of Business Optimization (Optimize).
The announcement also noted that, as part of the reorganization, a sixth new FAS office (Transform) will focus on accelerating automation and implementing artificial intelligence solutions.
The new FAS makes procurement and business sense. It effectively leverages resources across the organization, creating a framework that will enhance the transparency, timeliness, and productivity of procurement and other shared services operations for customer agencies, industry partners, and the American people. There is a lot to unpacking to do when discussing the new FAS structure. This week’s FAR & Beyond is the first in a series of periodic blogs reflecting on key aspects of the restructured FAS, highlighting opportunities and considerations for the new FAS in delivering best value mission support for customer agencies and the American people.
A key feature of the FAS structure is the consolidation of GSA’s major governmentwide contract vehicles into the Office of Acquisition Solutions Development, also known as the “Create” office. Under the previous FAS structure, the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program was divided into four separate offices, creating unnecessary variations in contract management operations across the program. Similarly, GSA’s family of IT GWACs and the OASIS and OASIS+ contract vehicles were in two separate offices. The consolidation of the MAS program, the IT GWACs, and the OASIS program in “Create” provides operational and strategic opportunities for a more efficient, effective, and complimentary portfolio of governmentwide contract vehicles serving customer agencies.
The consolidation of these contract vehicles in Create provides an opportunity to enhance support, training, and development of the acquisition workforce. The new Create eliminates unnecessary stovepipes in procurement operations, providing a management structure that will address inconsistencies in dealing with GSA’s industry partners. Consistency in procurement processes remains a major hurdle for companies navigating the MAS program. It can now be addressed by a single management team. The new Create also provides a management structure that enhances operational and management flexibility. Create is now able to more effectively leverage and allocate the collective resources of the governmentwide contract vehicle programs based on workload across the portfolio. Regarding the contract vehicles themselves, Create is in a position to enhance the opportunities for industry to provide commercial solutions through its government-wide contract vehicles.
Finally, the systems supporting these government-wide contract vehicles also reside in the Create office. This is another positive step. Locating the systems in the same office as the contract vehicles programs that they support fosters greater coordination, better understanding of business processes and operational requirements, and a unity of effort/vision that can further enhance effectiveness and efficiency.