Is the General Services Administration’s upcoming “Mass Mod” to standardize product part numbers going to turn into a mad mess for small contractors?

      That could be a risk for some vendors as they await instructions for updating their GSA Multiple-Award Schedules contracts with new numbers for possibly thousands or tens of thousands of items.

      Thomas Sharpe, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), announced the mass modification in a blog post on June 12 with the goal of allowing easier price comparisons for the same products.

      “In June, we’ll be issuing a mass modification to all Multiple-Award Schedules contractors requesting that they standardize part numbers or Special Item Numbers. This will allow FAS to reduce price variability at the contract level and is the first step in enabling our customers to make better price comparisons at the order level,” Sharpe wrote in the blog.

      Scott Orbach, president of EZGSA services firm, said the GSA’s goals for better pricing information are laudable, but he predicts the implementation of the mass modification will be difficult.

      “This is a huge deal for some vendors,” Orbach told Set-Aside Alert.

      “It potentially covers hundreds of thousands or even millions of products,” Orbach said. “There are many people selling online with access to an almost unlimited catalog. For office supplies alone, we are talking about tens of thousands of products.”

      “I don’t think people realize the extent of what is being proposed,” Orbach added.

      Complicating matters are the many discrepancies in numbers for the same or similar items, as many vendors over the years have added prefixes and suffixes to manufacturer part numbers to distinguish retooled, modified or updated stock from the original items, he said.

More information: GSA blog http://goo.gl/CRaLZI