Central Contractor Registration Introduces New Data Elements - U.S. defense policy - Brief Article

Program Manager, Sept, 2000

On Aug 21, 2000, the Joint Electronic Commerce Program Office's Central Contractor Registration system introduced new data elements that will pave the way for the government migration to e-Commerce. These improvements will help the current CCR users get accurate information more quickly.

The CCR has a Web site where vendors wishing to obtain Department of Defense contracts provide general information about themselves. Over the past year, this database successfully captured more than 160,000 registrants as well as providing vendor financial information to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to expedite payments to vendors.

Three new data elements are points of contact that enable companies to conduct electronic business with the federal government, establish a small business identification field, and create a credit card acceptance field. They can be viewed on the CCR public query Web site at http://www.ccr2000.com. In addition, the database of CCR vendors can now be simultaneously searched by geographic location, industry and socio-economic factors.

The new POCs extend the use of CCR beyond payment information and into the e-Commerce procurement realm. The first POC, for Electronic Business represents the vendor employee who will administer the approval process for vendor employees accessing DoD's e-Business systems. Next, the government business POC is the vendor's contracting/marketing representative who will need access to government, on-line bidding systems that are part of the DoD Business Operations application. Finally the Past Performance POC is the vendor's designated person with approval to access and interact with the DoD Past Performance System.

"These new points of contact bring a level of personalization to CCR that move the system from a data repository to an integrated system with other DoD e-Business applications," commented Scottie Knott, JECPO director.

Additionally CCR now includes a data field, the Marketing Partner Identification Number, where vendors can set their own password for other partner applications. Current partner applications are the on-line bidding systems associated with DoDBusOpps and the Past Performance Automated Information System.

DoD is using CCR as standard business policy Currently all DoD contracting officers must ensure that a vendor is registered in CCR prior to making award. DoD disbursing officials then use the CCR electronic funds transfer data to make payments. Other federal agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Departments of Interior, Treasury Transportation, Commerce, and Energy currently use the CCR.

"The new data elements in CCR help the government 3/4 to continue to provide more useful information from vendors to our acquisition professionals," said Lisa Romney CCR program manager.

The JECPO is organized under both the Defense Logistics Agency and Defense Information Systems Agency and is provided policy and oversight from the DoD Chief Information Officer.

The Defense Logistics Agency provides supply support, and technical and logistics services to the military services and to several civilian agencies. Head-quartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., DLA is the one source for nearly every consumable item, whether for combat readiness, emergency preparedness or day-to-day operations.

Editor's Note: This information is in the public domain at http://www.dla.mil/public_info/ on the World Wide Web. For more information, call Maria Lloyd, (703) 765-6188.