The General Services Administration is set to implement a perhaps substantial reorganization to the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) to align it along Category Management (CM)-based business lines.  Implementation, however, has hit a snag as at least one federal employee union is challenging the plan.  The CM reorganization plan would align FAS offices along business lines such as professional services, IT hardware, office supplies, assisted acquisition services and similar business-line specific entities.  It is intended to reduce redundancy among current FAS operations as well as to improve how the service communicates with other parts of GSA.  Implementation of the plan is expected to proceed once union concerns are addressed.  Current betting is that it will definitely be sometime this calendar year.

The impact on contractors remains to be seen.  While companies will likely retain their contracting officers, the organization’s in which they reside may change.  New CM-oriented management structures may also mean renewed emphasis on pricing.  Along with other changes, such as the introduction of the Formatted Pricing Tool, there is a lot happening at GSA that its business partners must stay on top of.