Notice2022-24057
Department of Defense Catalog Data Standard
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
November 4, 2022
Issuing agencies
Defense DepartmentDefense Acquisition Regulations System
Abstract
DoD is exploring the use of a standard electronic format to capture commercial item catalog information on products or services offered by potential suppliers. DoD requests input on the notional approach, the data format, and the impacts of the approach.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 87 Issue 213 (Friday, November 4, 2022)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 213 (Friday, November 4, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66679-66680]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2022-24057]
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Defense Acquisition Regulations System
[Docket Number DARS-2022-0028]
Department of Defense Catalog Data Standard
AGENCY: Defense Acquisition Regulations System, Department of Defense
(DoD).
ACTION: Request for information.
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SUMMARY: DoD is exploring the use of a standard electronic format to
capture commercial item catalog information on products or services
offered by potential suppliers. DoD requests input on the notional
approach, the data format, and the impacts of the approach.
DATES: Submission of Comments: Interested parties should submit written
comments to the address shown in ADDRESSES on or before January 3, 2023
to be considered in the implementation planning.
Public meeting: A virtual public meeting will be held on December
6, 2022, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. The public meeting
will end at the stated time or when the discussion ends, whichever
comes first.
Registration: Registration to participate in this meeting must be
received no later than close of business on November 22, 2022.
Information on how to register for the public meeting may be found in
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this notice.
ADDRESSES: Public Meeting: A virtual public meeting will be held using
Zoom video conferencing software.
Submission of Comments: Submit comments to the questions provided
below, using any of the following methods:
[cir] Federal eRulemaking Portal: <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>.
Search for ``Docket Number DARS-2022-0028.'' Select ``Comment'' and
follow the instructions to submit a comment. Please include your name,
company name (if any), and ``Docket Number DARS-2022-0028'' on any
attached document(s).
[cir] Email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c8a7bbace6acaea9babb88a5a9a1a4e6a5a1a4"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="e8879b8cc68c8e899a9ba885898184c6858184">[email protected]</span></a>. Include ``DoD Catalog Data
Standard'' in the subject line of the message.
Comments received generally will be posted without change to
<a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, including any personal information
provided. To confirm receipt of your comment(s), please check <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, approximately two to three days after submission
to verify posting.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Bruce Propert, telephone 703-697-
4384.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Notional DoD Catalog Data Standard
DoD has developed a high level of visibility into its contracting
practices through the use of automation and data standards. For
example, the Procurement Data Standard has enabled DoD to capture
contract awards in discrete data elements, allowing unprecedented
insights into DoD's purchases. Data capture has also enabled
implementation of tools, notably the Supplier Performance Module (SPM)
in the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment, to improve the
quality of information available when making small dollar purchases.
SPM enables DoD to apply information on past performance with specific
suppliers and items through reuse of data captured as a normal part of
the business process. Another area in which DoD has been able to
improve the buying process through automation is the FedMall, which
enables purchase card holders to order items through existing
Government ordering instruments through the use of a shopping cart
analogous to that found on commercial sales platforms.
Efforts in both of these areas for product or service
identification have been constrained by existing business practices
within the Government. For example, some Government-wide ordering
instruments do not have a price listed for their goods; users are
directed to the company website for commercially available pricing.
Different companies often describe the same commercial product or
service in different ways, hampering market research. Further,
legislation specific to the Department of Defense requires collection
of additional information relevant to products. Providing current and
accurate product data descriptions, pricing, and commercial catalog
standards is essential to understanding the market.
[[Page 66680]]
Commercial companies' offerings are provided to the Government in
the form of catalogs, both hard copy and online, in the form of PDFs or
hand-entered data. Electronic data formats, such as the EDI 832
standard, have been used in the past by larger companies to try to
automate the uploading and maintenance of catalog data. However, newer
data formats, such as eXtensible Markup Language, or XML, provide
greater flexibility and ease of programming that can make electronic
commercial catalogs possible for more companies.
Using XML, DoD has developed a draft Catalog Data Standard (CDS)
which could be used by companies to provide their catalogs to the
Government, as well as to update and maintain prices once the catalog
has been provided. The notional CDS was developed based on review of
the existing American National Standards Institute X12 832 Price/Sales
Catalog, as well as review of existing catalog data formats in use
across various reseller websites and reviews of actual product catalogs
for a wide range of items.
The objectives of the notional CDS are as follows:
1. Capture commercial catalog descriptions and prices for existing
and future ordering instruments to eliminate manual efforts to capture
catalog prices from websites and printed documents.
2. Ensure uniformity in the data used to describe parts and
services that are identical but have varying descriptions in the
marketplace.
3. Enable use of existing price lists to competitively place
purchase orders based on the prices currently available, thus
eliminating the need for multiple requests for quotes.
4. Improve traceability of prices over time through uniform item
descriptions.
5. Precisely identify products offered and their origins in order
to identify and eliminate counterfeits and trace sources of supply to
ensure security.
6. Enable comparison of proposed item prices with similar purchases
both by the Government and by other contractors.
The Government has historically been able to identify like items
through the cataloging process run by the Federal Logistics Information
Service (FLIS), which assigns National Stock Numbers (NSNs) to commonly
ordered supplies. However, there are many commercial products that are
not assigned NSNs (approximately 95% of DoD-purchased items currently
do not have an NSN). The focus of the notional CDS is commercial, non-
NSN items. In the event an item is identified as a candidate for an NSN
it would be fed into the existing FLIS process. The intent of the
notional CDS is to capture cataloging data for those products and
services that would not have an NSN assigned, including software, and
certain categories of common commercial products and services which may
have other consensus standard identifiers applied. Therefore, the
intent behind the notional CDS is to leverage commercial cataloging and
identification processes to enable standard identification of items
beyond those covered by the NSN process.
DoD is posting the following draft documents for comment at <a href="https://dodprocurementtoolbox.com/site-pages/ebusiness-data-standards-schemas:">https://dodprocurementtoolbox.com/site-pages/ebusiness-data-standards-schemas:</a>
1. The Catalog Data Standard (Discussion Draft), an XML Schema
Definition (.XSD) file that defines the format of the data that would
be captured and the relationships between the data elements. This file
is best viewed using a dedicated XML reader.
2. An Enumerations and Annotations document (Discussion Draft), a
Microsoft Excel (.XLS) file that lists allowable values for certain
elements within the XSD.
3. A Concept of Operations (Discussion Draft) Microsoft Word
document, which explains how DoD would receive, store, maintain, and
use the catalogs.
DoD requests comments on the following areas:
1. The Notional CDS Schema Structure and Formats. Defense Pricing
and Contracting will host a virtual public meeting to describe the
notional schema and how it might be used with ordering instruments,
simplified acquisitions, and submission of cost and pricing data.
2. Enumerations. DoD requests inputs in particular on:
a. Existing industry standards that can be used to identify
products across suppliers within a given industry, such as
pharmaceuticals.
b. Standard descriptive information that can also be used to
identify characteristics of items within a particular industry or set
of industries.
c. Standards for defining commercial services that are used within
a specific industry such as automotive vehicle maintenance or medical
procedures.
3. Authoritative Sources. For any sources of enumerations
identified, DoD requests input on whether authoritative sources exist
that can validate either the information or the formats for the
information.
4. Concept of Operations (Discussion Draft). DoD requests comments
on the notional Concept of Operations document.
5. Use of catalog submissions as standing price quotations. DoD
requests comments on the potential use of the notional CDS in the
context of Federal Acquisition Regulation section 13.103.
6. Use of catalogs as baseline documents in developing blanket
purchase agreements or other ordering instruments.
7. Ability to map existing catalog data to the XML format in the
notional CDS.
8. Cost to develop and deliver the catalogs using the notional CDS,
and the extent to which those costs would be offset by:
a. Eliminating the need to maintain Government-specific information
on contractor websites.
b. Reducing the volume of requests for quotations by use of the
catalog.
9. Use of the notional CDS for submitting bills of materials as
either prime contractors to the Government or as suppliers/
subcontractors to prime contractors or higher tier subcontractors.
10. Any other general comments on the notional CDS and potential
uses.
B. Public Meeting Information
DoD plans to hold a public meeting to obtain input from the private
sector and interested parties in Government regarding the notional CDS,
data format, and potential impact on the public.
Registration: Individuals wishing to participate in the virtual
meeting must register by November 22, 2022, to facilitate entry to the
meeting. Interested parties may register for the meeting by sending the
following information via email to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#18776b7c367c7e796a6b587579717436757174"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="4d223e2963292b2c3f3e0d202c242163202421">[email protected]</span></a>. Include ``Public
Meeting, DoD Catalog Data Standard'' in the subject line of the
message.
<bullet> Full name.
<bullet> Valid email address, which will be used for admittance to
the meeting.
<bullet> Valid telephone number, which will serve as a secondary
connection method. Registrants must provide the telephone number they
plan on using to connect to the virtual meeting.
<bullet> Company or organization name.
Correspondence, Comments, and Presentations: Please cite ``Public
Meeting, DoD Catalog Data Standard'' in all correspondence related to
the public meeting. There will be no transcription at the meeting.
Authority: DoD Instruction 5000.35, Defense Acquisition Regulations
(DAR) System.
Jennifer D. Johnson,
Editor/Publisher, Defense Acquisition Regulations System.
[FR Doc. 2022-24057 Filed 11-3-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 5001-06-P
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