3M

Company Profile

Master Supply Agreement between NATO and 3M:
NAMSA speeds up supply of 3M products to NATO

A master supply agreement was concluded in August 2009 between the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, NAMSA, Luxembourg, and 3M Deutschland Germany covering all European activities of the diversified technology company 3M. This will make it easier for the military procurement agencies of the 21 countries concerned to purchase a wide variety of 3M products. The agreement covers an ever-growing number of innovative products concerned with occupational safety and health, personal protective equipment, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of infrastructure and military equipment and other technologies.
This makes the ordering process for the listed products much simpler and shortens procurement time from the present several months down to several days for products subject to an obligatory tendering process.

As a supranational NATO agency, NAMSA has been coordinating purchasing and logistics of consumer goods and replacement parts since 1958. It supports the procurement organizations of NATO member and associated countries on request by issuing international invitations to tender for products and services that are used in more than one country. With the eCat1 category agreement, which is initially concluded for three years, NAMSA opens up all the benefits of the web-based logistics platform NATO Logistics Stock Exchange NLSE to the members for a wide variety of 3M products. This electronic purchasing raises efficiency within order processing and offers a high level of stock transparency at the supra-national level. It provides important information in order to avoid possible over- and double stocking and also threats of undersupply. At the same time, 3M is able to plan production capacity to fit more closely with requirements.

Within 3M, the German market organization Government Markets, as the central contact point, coordinates all cross-functional 3M activities with NAMSA on a cross-border basis. In close cooperation, the team will continually expand the portfolio of innovative products and solutions listed in the agreement.
NATO-wide, more than 10,000 3M products already have a supply identification number and are therefore listed with NATO and the member countries as items of supply.