SCMC signs enterprise-wide agreement for AbilityOne products

The AbilityOne Program employs more than 42,000 people who are blind or have significant disabilities in the manufacturing and delivery of products and services, including more than 3,000 wounded veterans. The program seeks to tap this underutilized workforce to deliver high-quality, mission-essential products and services to Federal agencies, providing jobs with competitive wages and benefits to match the individual’s interest and skills.

Earlier this year, the Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) was asked to help expand access to AbilityOne products and services across the Department of Energy. The SCMC is a strategic supply chain program dedicated to simplifying the buying process to enable savings for the Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) prime contractors. It is managed by the Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC).

Bree Ramirez and Robert Leuszler, members of the SCMC commodity management team, spearheaded an initiative to negotiate an enterprise-wide commodity agreement for AbilityOne products that could be used by SCMC partner sites nationwide.

In November, the SCMC made an award to a small, women-owned, HUBZone company that provides office and technology supplies. This new SCMC agreement can be used by all DOE M&O contractors, saving significant time at the site level.

Many sites, plants, and labs across the Department of Energy have pledged a certain percentage of their spend to AbilityOne. The new SCMC award enables the DOE NNSA & EM sites to receive credit towards their AbilityOne pledges without sacrificing their small business socioeconomic goals.