FAR 47.305-7—Quantity analysis, direct delivery, and reduction of crosshauling and backhauling.
Plain-English Summary
FAR 47.305-7 tells agencies how to think about transportation efficiency when buying supplies. It covers three related topics: quantity analysis, direct delivery, and reducing crosshauling and backhauling. In practice, the section pushes the requiring activity and contracting officer to look beyond the purchase price and consider whether buying larger quantities, shipping directly to users, or choosing better distribution points can lower total transportation and handling costs without hurting the program schedule. The rule is meant to prevent unnecessary freight expense, duplicate handling, and inefficient movement of the same items through the supply chain. It also encourages the government to identify known future needs, use central distribution only when it makes sense, and avoid shipping items back and forth through the same areas. For contractors, this can affect delivery points, shipment quantities, packaging, and logistics planning; for contracting officers, it is a planning and coordination requirement that should be addressed early in the acquisition process.
Key Rules
Consider carload or truckload quantities
The requiring activity must consider buying supplies in carload or truckload quantities when feasible. The point is to see whether larger shipment sizes can reduce transportation cost per unit without creating schedule problems or unnecessary inventory risk.
Check for additional requirements
If extra quantities can be shipped at lower unit transportation cost or with only a small increase in total transportation cost, and doing so will not harm the schedule, the contracting officer must ask the requiring activity whether more of the same supplies are already needed. This includes situations where the extra quantity could be stored for later use or distributed to multiple users along the same route or in the same area.
Evaluate direct delivery
When an activity normally receives large shipments at a central point for later redistribution, the contracting officer must consider whether direct delivery to the using activity is practical if the quantity is large enough to justify it. Direct delivery can reduce both transportation and handling costs by eliminating an intermediate stop.
Reduce crosshauling and backhauling
The contracting officer must choose distribution and transshipment facilities in a way that minimizes moving the same kind of property in opposite directions or sending property back through areas it already passed. The goal is to avoid wasteful routing and unnecessary mileage.
Balance logistics with schedule
All of these decisions are conditioned on not impairing the program schedule. Transportation savings are important, but they cannot come at the expense of timely mission support or operational readiness.
Responsibilities
Requiring Activity
Consider whether supplies should be acquired in carload or truckload quantities, and identify any known need for additional quantities that could be shipped economically. Also assess whether direct delivery would be feasible and whether larger quantities could be stored or redistributed efficiently.
Contracting Officer
Ask the requiring activity about known additional requirements when larger quantities would lower transportation costs, consider direct delivery when shipment volumes justify it, and select distribution or transshipment facilities to reduce crosshauling and backhauling. The contracting officer must coordinate these logistics choices without impairing the schedule.
Agency / Using Activities
Support planning by identifying storage capacity, future demand, and distribution patterns that could justify larger shipments or direct delivery. Using activities should provide accurate information about where supplies will actually be needed and how they will be received and handled.
Practical Implications
This section is a logistics-cost control rule, not just a shipping preference. Contracting officers should think about freight, handling, storage, and routing early, because those costs can be significant even when the unit price looks good.
A common pitfall is buying only the immediate quantity needed without checking whether a slightly larger shipment would reduce total transportation cost. Another is failing to ask the requiring activity about foreseeable follow-on needs that could be combined into one more efficient shipment.
Direct delivery can save money, but only if the receiving site can handle it and the quantity is large enough to justify bypassing a central distribution point. If the using activity lacks receiving capability or storage, direct delivery may create delays or operational problems.
Crosshauling and backhauling often happen when distribution networks are planned around convenience rather than route efficiency. Contracting officers should look for opportunities to place intermediate facilities strategically so items do not travel in opposite directions or retrace the same route.
For contractors, the practical effect is that delivery instructions, destination points, and shipment sizing may be shaped by government transportation efficiency goals. Contractors should be prepared for route, destination, or quantity requirements that differ from a simple ship-to address model.
Official Regulatory Text
(a) Quantity analysis. (1) The requiring activity shall consider the acquisition of carload or truckload quantities. (2) When additional quantities of the supplies being acquired can be transported at lower unit transportation costs or with a relatively small increase in total transportation costs, with no impairment to the program schedule, the contracting officer shall ascertain from the requiring activity whether there is a known requirement for additional quantities. This may be the case, for example, when the additional quantity could profitably be stored by the activity for future use, or could be distributed advantageously to several using activities on the same transportation route or in the same geographical area. (b) Direct delivery. When it is the usual practice of a requiring activity to acquire supplies in large quantities for shipment to a central point and subsequent distribution to using activities, as needed, consideration shall be given, if sufficient quantities are involved to warrant scheduling direct delivery, to the feasibility of providing for direct delivery from the contractor to the using activity, thereby reducing the cost of transportation and handling. (c) Crosshauling and backhauling. The contracting officer shall select distribution and transshipment facilities intermediate to origins and ultimate destinations to reduce crosshauling and backhauling; i.e., to the transportation of personal property of the same kind in opposite directions or the return of the property to or through areas previously traversed in shipment.