When searching for Government bids or Government contract awards – You need to think like DoD. In our past 18 years helping clients in their quest of finding and understanding DoD’s procurements we’ve acquired knowledge to produce good results quickly, this short article will touch on a few hints you might use.
The Department of Defense (DoD) uses the National Stock Number or NSN to categorize the close to 7 million items they purchase on a regular basis. These NSN’s can be anything from an entire system such as the AN/TPS-1G radar set NSN 5840-00-679-1284, or something as simple as copy paper NSN 7530-01-033-8891 or a Pen 7520-00-935-7136.
If you’re searching for bids/contract awards on pens or copy paper you might try typing the word “pens” or “copy paper” – many systems would return no results. The reason being is that many of the systems you may be searching only use the official name and not the common name.
The NSN for copy paper listed above has the official name “Paper, Copying, Xerographic Process” and the listed pen above is officially known as “Pen, Ball-Point”. Knowing and searching using the correct item name will produce results. In most cases the first part of the name describes the item in its most basic form. The second or third word provides a more descriptive characteristic of the item.
- “Pen” – Basic name
- “Ball-Point” – Further describes the type of pen
Sometimes it gets more challenging especially when the item you are looking for is used in multiple applications such as a “Plastic carrying case” or “Equipment case” – the types you might see with an inserted foam cutout used for a piece of equipment or tools to sit in. That type of item is officially named “Case, Photographic Equipment” even though many of the uses don’t involve cameras. We’ll cover how to find things like this in another article.
BidLink has been a leading provider of industry marketing data relating to DoD procurement for the past 18 years. Find defense contracts and research competition. Learn more at www.bidlink.net
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