Today, government agencies and commercial companies are attempting to streamline the manner in which they conduct business with and between one another, having as their mutual objective the establishment of a more efficient and responsive business environment that will promote the on-demand delivery of quality products to the end user. Government procurement agencies and large prime contractors want and need rapid access to highly responsive and reliable vendors that will consistently deliver quality goods at a reasonable price. Commercial manufacturers want and need reasonable assurance that they will be receiving requests for quotes and, subsequently, purchase orders for products that they are capable of manufacturing. Furthermore, suppliers want to have the confidence that an order they receive from a government buying activity or prime contractor will routinely be of sufficient contract value to justify the investment associated with preparing a quote and possibly disrupting ongoing production operations to fill the order. Not easy needs to satisfy. Until now.

Team SCRA’s Group Technology Selection System, or simply GTSS, has been developed to address many of the wants and desires briefly described above. Working with the Defense Supply Centers in Columbus, Ohio, and Richmond, Virginia, and with Oklahoma State University, the Team designed a system that will improve the parts procurement process by:

• Rapidly selecting capable vendors for current demands of National Stock Numbered (NSN) items through the mapping of Group Technology (GT) codes for needed NSNs to a computerized Vendors Manufacturing Capability database;
• Facilitating the grouping of stock-numbered items that have similar manufacturing features so that larger quantities can be included in each request for quote and subsequent order; and
• Facilitating the systematic analysis of vendor capabilities once they are loaded into the Manufacturing Capability database.

GTSS is designed to greatly alleviate many of the problems commonly associated with the acquisition of small quantities of oftentimes difficult to obtain stock-numbered items. The system offers benefits to both buyers and sellers of commodities. First, government and commercial buying activities are able to quickly find qualified suppliers of the products they are seeking, using the system to analyze part characteristics against supplier capabilities to ensure that only the most capable manufacturers are requested to respond to each procurement

From the seller’s perspective, GTSS makes it more beneficial to respond to requests for bids that are being issued by buyers using the GTSS, since the size of the order can typically be significantly increased through the grouping of similar families of parts. And a larger order makes it easier to justify the expense associated with preparing a bid and possibly altering a production schedule.

How quickly an organization’s investment in GTSS is returned will be dependent on how extensively the system is used, and more specifically the degree to which the system’s databases are expanded over time. Meaning, as the number of parts that are included in the National Stock Number item database increases, and as vendors are added to the Vendors Manufacturing Capability database, the GTSS will save you more and more time and money. SCRA can assist you in determining your specific return, based on your business environment and estimated workload.