Category Management
Category Management is a strategic business practice that the Federal government is implementing to buy smarter and more like a single enterprise. The goals of government-wide category management are to: 1) Deliver more savings, value, and efficiency for Federal agencies; 2) Eliminate unnecessary contract redundancies; and 3) Meet the government's small business goals. Category management makes it easier for industry to do business with the government by reducing duplicative contracts, as well as decreasing costs for bids, proposals, and contract administration - and all of these goals are supported by GSA's Acquisition Gateway.
In order to meet these goals, there is a big push within the Federal Government to bring Spend Under Management (SUM) by aligning contract actions with Tiers, specifically 1-3 and reducing contract actions in Tier 0.
The 4 Tiers of Category Management
Tier 0 - Unaligned spending by the agency
Tier 1 – Spending managed at the agency-wide level with supporting mandatory-use policies and strong contract management practices
Tier 2 – Spending managed at government-wide level through multi-agency or government-wide solutions
Tier 3 – Spending managed at the government-wide level through use of BIC solutions
Category Management Timeline
Government-wide Categories and Subcategories
Army Category Management Governance Framework
Medical Category – USAHCA’s Focus in Category Management
Within the Medical Category, PSCs are organized into the following three subcategories:
- 10.1 – Drugs and Pharmaceutical Products
- 10.2 – Medical Equipment and Accessories and Supplies
- 10.3 – Healthcare Services
The Product Service Code (PSC) for each contract action as reported to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPPDS) classifies goods/services into one of the common categories. Contract actions are further classified into their respective subcategories using data analytics tools. For determining which PSC aligns to a specific requirement, the following tools are available: DPC PSC Tool: https://psctool.us and U.S. Air Force PSC “prediction” tool: http://fscpsc.com.
PSC Alignment to Medical Subcategories (Oct 2020)
