U.S. Air Force delivers pallets of blankets to FEMA for Hurricane Sandy relief effort
This article will answer this question as well as provide some insight on Defense Department buying as it relates to “Customers” and the Buyers”.
Government contractors selling products to the military or federal agencies might ask this question in part to help find new procurement opportunities. Some may confuse the buyer and the customer leading the search for open solicitations to the wrong place. Many may think that the user “the customer” is the buyer, well in many cases the Department of Defense DoD buys products for other agencies. If for example you sell Blankets that are used by FEMA, you might think to look at FEMA for procurement opportunities, not in this case it’s the DoD Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) that buys them.
Let’s define the difference between the “buyer” and “the Customer” at least within the DoD world.
The U.S. DoD Government Buyer:
The “Buyer”, is the person listed in the solicitation and in most cases they are requesting for quotes for the item, and are not usually the customer. The DLA Buyer receives requests from customers to purchase specific items. Buyers may also receive multiple Purchase Requests (PRs) from various departments/agencies such FEMA or the Army, then consolidate those requests into one open solicitation.
The U.S. DoD Government Customer:
The “Customer” or end user is typically a single person/team needing a specific item. The Customer could be a Supply Specialist/Logistics Specialist part of a larger unit or group or an individual person. For example if a Supply Specialist serving at a division of the Army National Guard needed an item, they would create a Purchase Requests to be sent to a buyer.
The DoD Government Solicitation:
Once the Purchase Request reaches the buying office(s) solicitations are created.
New companies wishing to sell to the Department of Defense may not be familiar on how the DoD works regarding its US partner agencies. We’ve helped new companies over the past 25 years at BidLink increase their sales by providing a better understanding of this DoD partner agency relationship. The better you understand “Who buys” what for “Somone who needs”, the better chance you have of finding that open government solicitation you wish to bid on, because you know where to look.
The Defense Logistics Agency has hundreds of contracting offices with Purchase Requests coming from thousands of locations. Within the solicitation is another key point, the “Ship to:” location. It can tell you if an item is going direct a customer or to a DoD stocking location worldwide.
Do customers needs always end up in the creation of a Solicitation or is it pulled from stock?
DoD Logistics systems make determinations if a request from a customer goes to become a solicitation or is pulled from stock. Things such as status of stock and annual demand of a NSN come into play making this determination.
If a specific National Stock Number (NSN) was requested from an agency, let’s say FEMA needs 125,000 Disaster Blankets NSN 7210-00-119-5335 two things might happen.
- Pull the 125,000 Disaster Relief Blankets from stock stored in the worldwide DLA Distribution Locations or from one of the commercial third-party logistics (3PL) services contracted by DLA. Then the item would be delivered to the customer.
- Create a Purchase Request, send that PR to the appropriate DLA office, then a government solicitation would be created and posted requesting the items. If it was determined that stock of a specific item was not available then a solicitation would be created.
Where to look for Government Solicitations:
The Department of Defense and its hundreds of Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) buying offices each specialize in specific “commodity types” or types of products. For example if the Army, National Guard or Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA has a need for 125,000 Blankets to support hurricane victims the purchase request for blankets would eventually go to the DLA Clothing and Textiles office, Heraldic’s Group.
To answer the question who’s buying the Blankets would be The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support Clothing and Textiles supply chain office. And in most cases this specific NSN 7210-00-119-5335 called “Blanket, Bed” based on the past procurement history we looked at, it gets shipped and stocked at the Travis Association for the Blind a third-party logistics (3PL) location who is a DLA 3PL contracted supplier.
This Knowledge can help you fine tune how you look for open government solicitations as well as learning more about the customers needs.
In fact you might not be aware that the fresh fruit and vegetables your kids eat at the public schools in 47 states are provided by the Department of Defense through government contracts awarded by the DLA Troop Support Subsistence division in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
So next time you are looking and want to sell your product to a specific agency whether it be DoD or not, be sure to look at DLA.
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