51 -- TOOLS VENDOR NOTICE U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION The Heartland Region 1500 East Bannister Road, Kansas City, MO 64131-3088 March 15, 1999 Dear Tools Vendor: Six months ago the Hardware and Appliances Center hosted a one-day workshop to talk about the direction the Center was taking. We shared with everyone that the Center would be moving towards a single contracting method -- Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) -- to support all of our supply programs. Many of you are already participating in this exciting method of doing business with the Government. GSA had radically restructured the MAS program over the past three years. With these changes there is a stronger emphasis on the use of commercial practices and best value, rather than only on low priced buying. As a result, the MAS program provides all businesses, especially small and women owned businesses, a low cost entree into a very large Federal Market! Currently the Center uses three methods of contracting to support various supply programs. In the future we will use the MAS Contracts to support GSA Stock and Special Order Programs (SOP). Many of you currently have multiple contracts under these three separate programs! The elimination of separate stock and special order contracts will reduce your efforts in contracting with GSA and will also enable you to cover virtually your entire product line under one contract. The Center issued Multiple Award Schedule Solicitation 6FES-980203R3 on the Electronic Posting System (EPS) on January 5, 1999. This solicitation has merged all of the existing schedules programs for tools, woodworking and metalworking equipment into one schedule, substantially broadened the product line that may be offered, and reduced the number of Special Item Numbers to eight. You may access this solicitation via the Internet under http://www.eps.gov. It is extremely important that you submit offers under this solicitation as quickly as possible. Effective December 31, 1999, the Hardware and Appliances Center will not issue separate solicitations for items in the Stock and Special Order Programs. We will establish Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA's) against MAS contract requirements for Stock and SOP. The award will only be made to one firm. In order to assist any firm interested in participating in the MAS program, we will host a monthly "hands on" seminar at our location here in Kansas City, Missouri. These workshops will be held the second Tuesday of each month beginning on April 13, 1999. Please contact Joseph Marvil on (816) 926-7297 or at Internet address http://www.jmarvil@gsa.gov to register for these workshops and to obtain information on times and locations. During our workshop, we received very positive feedback for this program change. Over the many years that we have worked together we have had an excellent relationship and have gone through many changes together. I am confident we will continue to work together in this new endeavor and build even stronger partnerships! If you have any questions please contact myself on (816) 926-7179 or Mr. Joseph Marvil, Director, Acquisition Division II on (816) 926-7297. You are also encouraged to visit our home page at http://www.r6.gsa.gov/hac to learn more about this program and other exciting aspects of the Hardware and Appliances Center. Sincerely, Larry E. Schroyer Director Hardware and Appliances Center WEB: Visit this URL for the latest information about this, http://www.eps.gov/cgi-bin/WebObjects/EPS?ACode=S&;ProjID=Tools-Vendor- Special-Notice&LocID=7. E-MAIL: Julieann Vermeire, julieann.vermeire@gsa.gov. Posted 03/15/99 (D-SN308687).

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