by Shane Henson — December 16, 2013—The General Services Administration (GSA) recently announced that it is working to further reduce costs for federal office supply purchases through its Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative—Office Supply Third Generation (OS3) program.
OS3 is the agency’s latest effort to cut costs and increase efficiencies by buying everyday supplies like pens, paper, and printing items from a list of vendors with negotiated low prices. While this initiative has been around since 2006, this marks the agency’s third update of the program, which builds upon the success of OS2, the previous edition, which generated more than $350 million in savings to date, and achieved a small business utilization rate of 76 percent, the GSA says.
Building on the successes of OS2, OS3 will include the following new benefits:
- Procurement will be a full-and-open solicitation, open to all office supply businesses, including any businesses that do not have a GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract.
- Additional purchasing channel options for agencies with the inclusion of a requisition channel and eventually the 4th Party Logistics (vendor direct-delivery requisition/fulfillment) channel.
- Increased opportunities for small businesses with open season on-ramping and an increase in the number of awards reserved for small business.
- Lower prices through increased competition and a dynamic pricing model, which reduces price variances.
OS3 is expected to provide government savings of $65 million annually on administrative costs, and an additional $90 million in annual savings captured through lower prices.