[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 213 (Friday, November 4, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66679-66680]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-24057]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Defense Acquisition Regulations System

[Docket Number DARS-2022-0028]


Department of Defense Catalog Data Standard

AGENCY: Defense Acquisition Regulations System, Department of Defense 
(DoD).

ACTION: Request for information.

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SUMMARY: DoD is exploring the use of a standard electronic format to 
capture commercial item catalog information on products or services 
offered by potential suppliers. DoD requests input on the notional 
approach, the data format, and the impacts of the approach.

DATES: Submission of Comments: Interested parties should submit written 
comments to the address shown in ADDRESSES on or before January 3, 2023 
to be considered in the implementation planning.
    Public meeting: A virtual public meeting will be held on December 
6, 2022, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. The public meeting 
will end at the stated time or when the discussion ends, whichever 
comes first.
    Registration: Registration to participate in this meeting must be 
received no later than close of business on November 22, 2022. 
Information on how to register for the public meeting may be found in 
the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this notice.

ADDRESSES: Public Meeting: A virtual public meeting will be held using 
Zoom video conferencing software.
    Submission of Comments: Submit comments to the questions provided 
below, using any of the following methods:
    [cir] Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. 
Search for ``Docket Number DARS-2022-0028.'' Select ``Comment'' and 
follow the instructions to submit a comment. Please include your name, 
company name (if any), and ``Docket Number DARS-2022-0028'' on any 
attached document(s).
    [cir] Email: [email protected]. Include ``DoD Catalog Data 
Standard'' in the subject line of the message.
    Comments received generally will be posted without change to 
https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information 
provided. To confirm receipt of your comment(s), please check https://www.regulations.gov, approximately two to three days after submission 
to verify posting.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Bruce Propert, telephone 703-697-
4384.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Notional DoD Catalog Data Standard

    DoD has developed a high level of visibility into its contracting 
practices through the use of automation and data standards. For 
example, the Procurement Data Standard has enabled DoD to capture 
contract awards in discrete data elements, allowing unprecedented 
insights into DoD's purchases. Data capture has also enabled 
implementation of tools, notably the Supplier Performance Module (SPM) 
in the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment, to improve the 
quality of information available when making small dollar purchases. 
SPM enables DoD to apply information on past performance with specific 
suppliers and items through reuse of data captured as a normal part of 
the business process. Another area in which DoD has been able to 
improve the buying process through automation is the FedMall, which 
enables purchase card holders to order items through existing 
Government ordering instruments through the use of a shopping cart 
analogous to that found on commercial sales platforms.
    Efforts in both of these areas for product or service 
identification have been constrained by existing business practices 
within the Government. For example, some Government-wide ordering 
instruments do not have a price listed for their goods; users are 
directed to the company website for commercially available pricing. 
Different companies often describe the same commercial product or 
service in different ways, hampering market research. Further, 
legislation specific to the Department of Defense requires collection 
of additional information relevant to products. Providing current and 
accurate product data descriptions, pricing, and commercial catalog 
standards is essential to understanding the market.

[[Page 66680]]

    Commercial companies' offerings are provided to the Government in 
the form of catalogs, both hard copy and online, in the form of PDFs or 
hand-entered data. Electronic data formats, such as the EDI 832 
standard, have been used in the past by larger companies to try to 
automate the uploading and maintenance of catalog data. However, newer 
data formats, such as eXtensible Markup Language, or XML, provide 
greater flexibility and ease of programming that can make electronic 
commercial catalogs possible for more companies.
    Using XML, DoD has developed a draft Catalog Data Standard (CDS) 
which could be used by companies to provide their catalogs to the 
Government, as well as to update and maintain prices once the catalog 
has been provided. The notional CDS was developed based on review of 
the existing American National Standards Institute X12 832 Price/Sales 
Catalog, as well as review of existing catalog data formats in use 
across various reseller websites and reviews of actual product catalogs 
for a wide range of items.
    The objectives of the notional CDS are as follows:
    1. Capture commercial catalog descriptions and prices for existing 
and future ordering instruments to eliminate manual efforts to capture 
catalog prices from websites and printed documents.
    2. Ensure uniformity in the data used to describe parts and 
services that are identical but have varying descriptions in the 
marketplace.
    3. Enable use of existing price lists to competitively place 
purchase orders based on the prices currently available, thus 
eliminating the need for multiple requests for quotes.
    4. Improve traceability of prices over time through uniform item 
descriptions.
    5. Precisely identify products offered and their origins in order 
to identify and eliminate counterfeits and trace sources of supply to 
ensure security.
    6. Enable comparison of proposed item prices with similar purchases 
both by the Government and by other contractors.
    The Government has historically been able to identify like items 
through the cataloging process run by the Federal Logistics Information 
Service (FLIS), which assigns National Stock Numbers (NSNs) to commonly 
ordered supplies. However, there are many commercial products that are 
not assigned NSNs (approximately 95% of DoD-purchased items currently 
do not have an NSN). The focus of the notional CDS is commercial, non-
NSN items. In the event an item is identified as a candidate for an NSN 
it would be fed into the existing FLIS process. The intent of the 
notional CDS is to capture cataloging data for those products and 
services that would not have an NSN assigned, including software, and 
certain categories of common commercial products and services which may 
have other consensus standard identifiers applied. Therefore, the 
intent behind the notional CDS is to leverage commercial cataloging and 
identification processes to enable standard identification of items 
beyond those covered by the NSN process.
    DoD is posting the following draft documents for comment at https://dodprocurementtoolbox.com/site-pages/ebusiness-data-standards-schemas:
    1. The Catalog Data Standard (Discussion Draft), an XML Schema 
Definition (.XSD) file that defines the format of the data that would 
be captured and the relationships between the data elements. This file 
is best viewed using a dedicated XML reader.
    2. An Enumerations and Annotations document (Discussion Draft), a 
Microsoft Excel (.XLS) file that lists allowable values for certain 
elements within the XSD.
    3. A Concept of Operations (Discussion Draft) Microsoft Word 
document, which explains how DoD would receive, store, maintain, and 
use the catalogs.
    DoD requests comments on the following areas:
    1. The Notional CDS Schema Structure and Formats. Defense Pricing 
and Contracting will host a virtual public meeting to describe the 
notional schema and how it might be used with ordering instruments, 
simplified acquisitions, and submission of cost and pricing data.
    2. Enumerations. DoD requests inputs in particular on:
    a. Existing industry standards that can be used to identify 
products across suppliers within a given industry, such as 
pharmaceuticals.
    b. Standard descriptive information that can also be used to 
identify characteristics of items within a particular industry or set 
of industries.
    c. Standards for defining commercial services that are used within 
a specific industry such as automotive vehicle maintenance or medical 
procedures.
    3. Authoritative Sources. For any sources of enumerations 
identified, DoD requests input on whether authoritative sources exist 
that can validate either the information or the formats for the 
information.
    4. Concept of Operations (Discussion Draft). DoD requests comments 
on the notional Concept of Operations document.
    5. Use of catalog submissions as standing price quotations. DoD 
requests comments on the potential use of the notional CDS in the 
context of Federal Acquisition Regulation section 13.103.
    6. Use of catalogs as baseline documents in developing blanket 
purchase agreements or other ordering instruments.
    7. Ability to map existing catalog data to the XML format in the 
notional CDS.
    8. Cost to develop and deliver the catalogs using the notional CDS, 
and the extent to which those costs would be offset by:
    a. Eliminating the need to maintain Government-specific information 
on contractor websites.
    b. Reducing the volume of requests for quotations by use of the 
catalog.
    9. Use of the notional CDS for submitting bills of materials as 
either prime contractors to the Government or as suppliers/
subcontractors to prime contractors or higher tier subcontractors.
    10. Any other general comments on the notional CDS and potential 
uses.

B. Public Meeting Information

    DoD plans to hold a public meeting to obtain input from the private 
sector and interested parties in Government regarding the notional CDS, 
data format, and potential impact on the public.
    Registration: Individuals wishing to participate in the virtual 
meeting must register by November 22, 2022, to facilitate entry to the 
meeting. Interested parties may register for the meeting by sending the 
following information via email to [email protected]. Include ``Public 
Meeting, DoD Catalog Data Standard'' in the subject line of the 
message.
     Full name.
     Valid email address, which will be used for admittance to 
the meeting.
     Valid telephone number, which will serve as a secondary 
connection method. Registrants must provide the telephone number they 
plan on using to connect to the virtual meeting.
     Company or organization name.
    Correspondence, Comments, and Presentations: Please cite ``Public 
Meeting, DoD Catalog Data Standard'' in all correspondence related to 
the public meeting. There will be no transcription at the meeting.
    Authority: DoD Instruction 5000.35, Defense Acquisition Regulations 
(DAR) System.

Jennifer D. Johnson,
Editor/Publisher, Defense Acquisition Regulations System.
[FR Doc. 2022-24057 Filed 11-3-22; 8:45 am]
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