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U.S. Department of Homeland Security Partners with DOD "EMall"

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For Immediate ReleasePress OfficeFebruary 6, 2004

The Department of Homeland Security's Management division and the Department of Defense's Defense Logistics Agency today announced a strategic partnership to provide DHS with a tailored version of DoD's EMALL (Electronic Mall).

The DOD EMALL is an Internet-based marketplace that allows purchasers to access DoD's wide variety of vendors and catalogs and enhances DHS' ability to provide a one-stop shopping experience to acquire the goods and services needed to support DHS' mission.

 "Partnering with DoD to leverage its resources and buying power makes good business sense. The powerful EMALL portal will significantly aid DHS' quest for an efficient means to strategically acquire the goods and services it needs to support mission capabilities," said DHS Under Secretary for Management Janet Hale.

The partnership with DOD EMALL enables DHS to participate in one of the largest existing government-to-business exchanges. With a single sign-on, DHS customers can access 383 commercial catalogs containing more than 12 million items and a total of 5.5 million National Stock Numbers from Defense Supply Centers and the General Services Administration. DHS is the first non-defense agency to use EMALL on an enterprise-wide basis.

Greg Rothwell, DHS chief procurement officer said, "The EMALL solution is an optimal means of ordering goods and services because the contracts are managed centrally and DHS' ordering is decentralized, providing a single electronic point of entry to search for, order, and acquire order status on goods and services for DHS' contracts."

Planned uses for the EMALL include providing DHS customers with the ability to buy from existing DoD contracts as well as contracts established exclusively for use by DHS. DHS is presently evaluating a number of commodities that it plans to strategically source.

 "The EMALL is a success story within the DoD Acquisition Domain for providing on-line ordering functionality.  We're excited that DHS will be able to also benefit from its capabilities" said Deputy Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Mark Krzysko.