3.5: Office of Procurement and Open Government

Other Information:

www.hq.nasa.gov/office/procurement - Overview: Information we publicly provide is authorized to be shared by statute, regulation, or other Federal directive, or is information that the Agency, or the Assistant Administrator for Procurement at NASA, has determined to also be appropriate to share. Not every piece of information we collect can be shared in a public forum nor is all information of interest to the public. Typically, there are four segments of the public that are our prime consumers. They are: 1. Enterprises looking for business opportunities with NASA as prime contractors, subcontractors, vendors, suppliers, sub-grantees, or as Agency partners; 2. Educational institutions; 3. Other Federal Agencies; and 4. Individuals. In 2009, approximately 83 percent of NASA’s budget was spent through the Agency’s procurement process. This represents more than $16.7 billion dollars in opportunities. Some of our information represents the most important sharing opportunities we, as procurement professionals, are charged by law with presenting to the public. Others—like the NASA Procurement Tenets, NASA Acquisition Internet Service Business Opportunities subscription service, and our Source Selection Statements—represent forward leaning efforts designed to help you understand what we are doing and how we conduct ourselves in the execution of our mission. How This Fits into Open Government: Procurement has always shared information with the public regarding opportunities and expenditures. We believe that the President’s Open Government Directive, and the public feedback it invites, will help us identify additional sharing opportunities and better ways to present our information.

Stakeholder(s):

• Office of Procurement: The mission of the Office of Procurement is to provide functional management, leadership, and policy direction of purchasing and financial assistance activities for NASA (excluding Space Act Agreements). Our goal is to ensure the Agency executes its mission successfully by effectively and efficiently managing the acquisition process. In the interest of furthering the principles of Open Government, we will be gauging interest through feedback in how the public can be more involved in our activities. Within the next year we plan to use a contest format to challenge NASA’s procurement community to identifying new information to be shared with the public. Within two years we plan to develop an on-line best practices guide for NASA procurement professionals to stimulate new collaboration.

Indicator(s):

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