Multiple Award Schedule Purchases

Changes Are Needed to Improve Agencies' Ordering Practices Gao ID: NSIAD-92-123 June 2, 1992

The Multiple Award Schedule program is designed to help federal agencies buy a wide range of commercial goods, everything from office supplies to personal computers, in a simplified way. Yet GAO found that agencies' purchasing practices under the program do not always result in the selection of the lowest overall cost alternative. For the most part, procurement offices fill user requests for a specific manufacturer's product without checking to see whether other items could satisfy the order at a lower cost. GAO found lower-cost goods and services for 19 of the 47 procurements it reviewed in depth, alternatives that might have shaved as much as 10 percent off the $3 million spent on the procurements. Further savings might have been possible had the agencies not limited purchase requests to specific manufacturers' products. Procurements under the Multiple Award Schedule program receive little management and oversight from procurement offices, federal agencies, or the General Services Administration (GSA). GSA and agency procurement officials generally agree that automating program information would facilitate product and price comparisons and promote purchases of lower-cost alternatives.

GAO found that: (1) agencies' MAS purchasing practices did not ensure compliance with statutory requirements that MAS orders result in the lowest overall cost alternative meeting the government's needs; (2) for the most part, procurement offices filled users' requests for a specific manufacturer's product without determining whether other MAS products could satisfy the requirement at a lower cost; (3) a lower-cost product, supplier, or procurement approach existed for 19 of the 47 MAS procurements reviewed; (4) the lower-cost alternatives would have resulted in savings of $269,000 to $323,000; (5) procurement offices, agencies, and the General Services Administration (GSA) all devoted little attention to management and oversight of MAS procurements; and (6) a broad consensus existed among GSA and agency procurement officials that automating MAS information would facilitate product and price comparisons and better ensure selecting the lowest-cost alternative.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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