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GSA Delays Final Polaris Solicitation Until Early January

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TAKE NOTE (Insights and Emerging Technology)

The General Services Administration has delayed publication of a final request for proposals for the $15 billion Polaris IT contract vehicle until early January.

In response to feedback from industry, the agency will now issue a final solicitation for the government wide acquisition contract vehicle (GWAC) in the new year. Contract officials at the agency had previously said they expected to issue the solicitation by December 21.

Polaris is one of the most hotly anticipated government wide IT acquisition vehicles among federal technology contractors. It has an expected $15 billion ceiling and will allow government agencies to obtain a range of services including cloud platforms, cybersecurity and software development technology..

The vehicle will replace the Alliant 2 Small Business contract, which was cancelled by GSA in July 2020.

GSA issued a draft solicitation for the procurement on Dec. 31, 2020, and since then has taken feedback from federal IT contractors on the structure of the contract.

The Polaris draft RFP includes the following seven categories of services in which task orders will be issued: cloud services, cybersecurity, data management, information and communication technologies, IT operations and maintenance, software development and system design.

GSA Press Secretary Christina Wilkes, said: “We had intended to release the final requests for proposals (RFPs) in December. However, Industry’s responses to a survey in October clearly indicated that they would prefer that we hold off on releasing the RFPs until after the holidays and we are honoring that request.”

“Our priority is to release the RFP for the small business and WOSB pools in January 2022, with the small business pool to be awarded first, later in the year. The HUBZone and SDVOSB RFPs and awards will follow,” added Wilkes.

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UNDER DEVELOPMENT (Insights for Developers)

Understanding EWM Process Oriented Storage Control

WHAT IS A PROCESS ORIENTED STORAGE CONTROL IN EWM?

An Inbound process which undergoes multiple process step from one stage to another is termed as POSC in EWM SAP, Process oriented storage control. This blog will deal with the multistage process steps of products coming from vendor.

Once product is received in warehouse, it is subject to below process steps

  • Unload
  • Packing
  • Putaway

POSC is primarily used to make complex type of putaways or picking.
A process step in SAP EWM is unloading, packing, de-consolidation or Quality inspection. Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) recognizes internal process steps predefined by SAP and external steps can be customized as per business needs.

In addition, internal or external process steps can be simple, such as unloading, or combined, such as de-consolidating.

The process steps for the Counting and De-consolidating processes predefined by SAP can be dynamic.

During goods receipt or goods issue, EWM copies the predefined process steps from the storage process type to the handling unit. EWM assigns these process steps to a handling unit as soon as it has created or changed them.

Since POSC only works with Handling units, so it is either required to pack the product once they arrive in warehouse or it should automatically create HU when received in warehouse.

POSC PROCESS SCENARIO

The following graphic shows the overall process of supply to production and receipt from production. It is followed by an explanation:

EWM POSC Scenario

  1. The Product which have taken is 641 arrives at Warehouse Door “DE01”.
  2. This Product is moved to staging area = “Staging Bay 9010 section – 0001 Staging Bin — GR-ZONE”.
  3. The product is further moved to packing work center (Storage TYPE T830)
  4. The Handling Unit created in Step 1 from delivery is completed in Packing work center and finally put away to Final storage types. (POSC works only with HU so we will have to pack the products in Inbound delivery either manually or automatically with packaging specification).

So, the products will undergo series of steps from unloading, packing and putaway.

CONFIGURATION REQUIRED FOR POSC IN EWM

SCM Extended Warehouse Management->Cross-Process Settings->Warehouse Task->Define Process-Oriented Storage Control

SAP has already given the predefined steps for Unloading (IB01), Packing (IPK1) and Put Away (IB03), so not required to customize any additional. The internal process codes are hard coded in system and it cannot be customized, however, the external step can be customized as per customer required.

So, steps configured in system are

  • IB01——Unload
  • IPK1—–Pack
  • IB03—–Put Away

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– Dig Deeper –
Understanding EWM POSC

HOLIDAY MESSAGE



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