bob7947

I did a quick look at the statement of work in the original solicitation.  All I could think of was box-store acquisition syndrome.  I'll save the self-scoring mechanism for a later date.  

It just might be Protests against Soliciation # 75N98121R00001 owned by the Department of Health and Human Services : National Institutes of Health.  The solicitation is for "Chief Information Officer - Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4)."  See it at SAM.GOV.

Let's check with GAO and count the open protests against the solicitation.

Connected Global Solutions, LLC and American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group Inc. v. U. S. and HomeSafe Alliance, LLC, No. 22-292C, 22-317C, November 15, 2022.

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“Perfection is the enemy of progress,” an adage aptly describing many aspects of the government procurement process. The search for a perfect procurement, proposal, or even performance would be in vain. Arbiters are tasked with deciding whether protested procurements pass muster; accepting less violates the law and disregards notions of transparency and fairness. Requiring more is likewise infeasible; it impairs government agencies, awardees, and ultimately taxpayers. It is within these parameters that the Court decides whether the United States has acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or in violation of the law in conducting the subject procurement.

Streamlining Source Selection by Improving the Quality of Evaluation Factors

Nash & Cibinic Report, October, 1994

A special column by Vernon J. Edwards, Consultant in Government Contracting

Almost everyone involved with Government contracting can tell a horror story about a “best value” source selection that involved the development of a lengthy and costly proposal, about a source selection that took two years to complete, and about a protest that delayed an important project and increased its costs. Legislators, policymakers, and acquisition managers are currently looking for ways to “streamline” the source-selection process. I would suggest that the single most effective thing acquisition managers can do to streamline the best value source-selection process is to improve their choices of evaluation factors for award.  (Read special column.)

* * * * *

Postscript: Streamlining Source Selection by Improving the Quality of Evaluation Factors

Nash & Cibinic Report, December, 1994

Ralph C. Nash and John Cibinic, Professors Emeriti of Law, George Washington University

Professors Nash and Cibinic received two comments on Vern Edwards' article.  One was from Bryan Wilkinson, Director, Compliance Guidelines, Teledyne, Inc. and the second was from Steven Kelman, Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.  The Postscript contains the two comments and the Professors' response.  (Read Postcript)

This week Vern was in looking around in his library when he found this study:

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The Quality and Professionalism of the Acquisition Workforce

------------------------------

Report of the Investigations Subcommittee, 

Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives,

One Hundred First Congress, Second Session

MAY 8, 1990

--------------------------------------------

The full 776 page study is available at Google Books.

The Contents page of the study contains links that you can click for the different chapters.  Vern mentions 2 chapters from the study. 

Chapter V:  The Contracting Workforce, contains a 12-page section devoted to the contracting officer.  He highlighted some text from the chapter about what Congress thought of contracting officers in 1990.  He explains that the study is out-of-date in some ways but it is still revealing about what Congress thought of contracting officers in those days:

“The contracting officer is the fulcrum of the acquisition process.”

and

Chapter VII, Professionalism of the Acquisition Workforce, is a 50-page discussion of the state of professionalism, education, and training, begins with a discussion of the concept of professionalism.

Using AI to Reduce Performance Risk in U.S. Procurement

GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 44, 2022

GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No 44, 2022

The Regulatory Review (June 29, 2022)

Jessica Tillipman, George Washington University - Law School

Courtesy of the Social Science Research Network

Published with permission of the author

Please Read:  Using AI to Reduce Performance Risk in U.S. Procurement

Government Contracts Law as an Instrument of National Power: A Perspective from the Department of the Air Force

51 Public Contract Law Journal 553 (2022)

Daniel Schoeni

U.S. Air Force JAG Corps

September 28, 2022

Courtesy of SSRN

Please Read Government Contracts Law as an Instrument of National Power: A Perspective from the Department of the Air Force

I've been interrupted by my dogs every time I sit down to write something.  

There have been numerous individuals who have published their writings on Wifcon.com and they have all benefitted from publishing their articles here.  As I have mentioned, h-t-h's article that was publised well over a decade ago, was the most popular article in September 2022.  The articles published on Wifcon.com have staying power.  If they are good, they are read over and over again each month.  You have an international audience here.  USE IT.  It's free.

When Wifcon.com was about 7 years old, Vern had submitted a number of articles to Wifcon.com for publication.  Way back then, his articles were viewed tens of thousands of times.  I am confident to say that after 24 years his articles have been viewed well over a million times on Wifcon.com.

On 10/28/2022 at 2:23 PM, here_2_help said:

We're not that far apart, Vern. There is a (small) audience for in-depth discussions and analyses, sure. They want what you write but they can't afford to subscribe. (And thank you for often making your articles available to the public.) But it's hard to publish in-depth articles when NCMA's membership covers a wide spectrum of folks, from state/local government buyers to prime contract buyers to commercial buyers. For example, I was just speaking with somebody who's planning to join NCMA in a few weeks or months; she's a buyer for the local school district. She's not looking for--nor is she ready for--a deep dive into, say, FAR Subpart 15.4.

h_t_h:

In the normal course of Wifcon.com business, I noticed an old article published on Wifcon.com from many years ago.  I noticed it because It was the most popular article viewed on Wifcon.com in September 2022. 

h_2_h ---- it was one of your articles.

I will add more to this note at a later date.

Joel:

Here's more about the Sino-American Joint Fighter.

Did hackers break into a top-secret USAF program?

F-35 secrets now showing up in China’s stealth fighter.

US reexamines cybersecurity after Russian hack

Theft of F-35 design data is helping U.S. adversaries -Pentagon

These articles have various dates.

I found this at 1 PM on 10/8/22 and posted it on the Home Page and here.   If you want to know why, see the POGO explanation..  

Project on Government Oversight

Use of Chinese Material in F-35 Highlights Pentagon’s Complexity Problem.  (September 26, 2022)

You can read about it here:  DefenseNews.

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Statement by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante on F-35 Waiver
Oct. 8, 2022 (About 1 PM Eastern)

Attributable to Dr. William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment –

Today, I signed the National Security Waiver that allows DoD to accept Lot 13 and Lot 14 F-35 aircraft containing non-compliant specialty metals in Honeywell Integrated Power Package Turbomachines. Acceptance of the aircraft is necessary for national security interests. This determination applies to a total of 126 F-35 aircraft awaiting delivery or to be delivered under the Lot 12-14 production contract. This determination applies from the date of my approval through the acceptance date of the last aircraft delivered under that contract, which is currently projected for October 31, 2023.

See State of Ohio v. U. S., No. 20-288C, October 7, 2022. 

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As the Court noted at oral argument, the Corps and Ohio have an ongoing relationship, and the same problems of Contract application are likely to arise again in the future. Tr. at 33:20–34:6. Given the “vague” nature of the Contract, future conflict seems possible. See, e.g., id. at 53:16 (Government counsel describing the Contract as “vague”). As the proceeding moves into the damages phase, the Court encourages the parties to work together to establish a dispute resolution process for expenses that are challenged in the future, as well as other issues that may arise in the course of the contractual relationship. Alternatively, the parties should consider amending the Contract to clarify its terms.

My dogs are sick tonight and I have been awake since 2 AM.  We've had 4 straight days of heavy rain and I've been out twice in the dark tonight with the dogs.  So, I started looking at the Eisenhower Farewell and then, of course, I thought of the A-12.  

This is an interview from 2014 with Frank Murray of the "CIA Air Force" which included the A-12.  After researching the A-12 for about 2 years you learn a lot about it.  Murrsy has an excellent memory.  It is on YouTube and titled:  Frank Murray Oral Interview, Lockheed A-12, 4/29/14.

Murray flew the last of the A-12s from Kadena and he landed at Area 51.  From there, at night, to keep the A-12 secret he flew the last flight to Palmdale where the CIA had the A-12s stored for about 15 years.

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Venezuela arrests 'Fat Leonard' contractor in U.S. Navy bribery case

Lenny was headed for Russia.  

He's supposed to be on his way to Brazil.  He needs to find a country that does not have extradition rights with us.

11 hours ago, BrettK said:

Yes, this is my exact problem. I know the FAR has grown and not shrunk over time. I also know the electronic versions counting pages are not exactly comparable to the paper versions of yesteryear. What might be a good way to illustrate visually the increase in complexity over time? I would have thought someone would have already created a nifty infographic for this but it might me up to me to do.

Try this.  It only goes back to 1999.  It doesn't answer your question but if you want to illustrate an increase in complexity, this might help.  On the left is the FACs since 1999.  On the right are the  FAR Cases.  Federal Acquisition Regulation Research.

The thing that caught my eye with that protest, besides the length, was the publication date--September 18.  That was Sunday.

Where's Lenny?

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On July 8, part supplier Precision Metals Corp. was granted a temporary restraining order vacating and setting aside a Defense Logistics Agency debarment and enjoining debarment while court proceedings are pending. The decision, which emphasized two procedural violations, serves as a reminder that an agency’s authority to debar contractors is not unlimited and that it must strictly adhere to the rights granted contractors before taking action.

See Case Affirms Rights of Contractors Facing Debarment at the NDIA's Business and Technology Magazine.  Precision Metals Corp. v. U.S. Dep't of Def., 22-CV-3761(JS)(ARL) (E.D.N.Y. Jul. 22, 2022)  The case I linked is the extension of the temporary restraining order (TRO) and it is in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York.  The current TRO ends in early September.  The procedures for a debarment are at FAR 9.406-3.

Don:

I started correcting the  code in your blog post.  That is when the software was making up its own code with decorations in 2010.  I see what was done and I think I can fix it.  I'll try to get back to it later.

Can anyone help with this?

I looked at one of the beginning lines in the case . . .

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This case arises out of a dispute between the parties regarding whether the information on the vendor lists constitutes “technical data" . . .

I haven't looked at the arguments yet but my immediate view is that vendor lists as technical data is nonsense.  Then I thought of the use of "technical evaluations" of offerors price proposals that we used 50 years ago.  I wouldn't view that as technical either.

I can still remember a GAO auditor from our Philadelphia region who did the old GAO pricing reviews using his term "techeval" whenever he saw me.  That was in the early 1970s.

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The "'measured mile' approach compares the productivity of an impacted period of the project with the productivity of an unimpacted period," Advanced Engineering & Planning Corp., ASBCA Nos. 53366, 54044, 05-1 BCA ,i 32,806 at 162,325.

Here are examples of how is it used. 

See Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company v. U. S., ASBCA No. 62209, August 3, 2022. 

Also see King Aerospace, Inc., ASBCA No. 60933, 19- 1 BCA ¶ 37,316.

Thank you all.  That is the case.

There is an article about the affair from that time in the British Independent.

The Spy Who Conned Me': a real-life thriller in Surrey