The concept traces to FAR 11.104, "Use of Brand Name or Equal Purchase Descriptions" — federal agencies are told to prefer performance specifications, but where a brand name is used, the solicitation must spell out the salient physical, functional, or performance characteristics an "equal" product has to meet, and evaluators can only judge against those stated characteristics, nothing else. State and local agencies use nearly identical language even outside federal contracts, typically built into a project's Division 01 substitution procedures. An "approved equal" is different from a true sole-source specification, which allows no substitution at all, and from a basis-of-design product, where the spec names one product the design was built around but still permits an equal. For manufacturers and reps, approved-equal language is often the whole ballgame — it's the difference between a project where only the named brand can win and one where any product meeting the salient characteristics is in play. Reading that language out of a spec section at scale, across every live project in a territory, is exactly the kind of extraction Nonlinear performs so a rep can see not just where their brand is already specified, but everywhere their product could qualify as the equal.
Knowledge Base
What is an approved equal?
"Approved equal" language lets a contractor propose a different manufacturer's product than the one named in a specification, as long as it matches the salient characteristics the spec calls out — keeping the bid competitive without the owner losing control of what gets built.
