Authorized AbilityOne Distributors
Federal government acquisition reforms of the last several years have resulted in highly decentralized buying patterns among federal customers. Before these acquisition reforms, most AbilityOne items were sold to three large federal distributors, the General Services Administration (GSA), the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to which federal customers went almost exclusively to obtain AbilityOne products. But in 1988 Acquisition reforms eliminated the mandatory status of GSA, and soon after, made changes to the VA and DLA distribution channels, and gave purchasing power via the issuance of Purchase Cards to hundreds of thousands of federal customers.
Since many federal customers were no longer purchasing common use
items from the traditional government distributors, the AbilityOne Program
needed to find a way for federal customers to obtain the AbilityOne products
they relied on and which Congress determined they should purchase.
In 1995, in conjunction with a new GSA "Desktop" Schedule (GSA has
recently merged all of its office supply schedules into one Schedule75IIAand
hardware and janitorial items are provided under GSA Schedule 51
Part V.), the Committee clarified its regulations to allow the authorization
of other federal and commercial AbilityOne distributors. Today, this initiative
provides federal customers with a wide selection of distributors
from which they can fulfill all of their purchasing needs.
Click
here for a complete list of Authorized AbilityOne Distributors.
For more information on how to become a AbilityOne Distributor, please visit the Potential Distributors page of this website.
|