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Deaner

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Everything posted by Deaner

  1. I've never added clauses to a contract after award before, but I don't see why not. 1.108 says CO's can include FAR changes into existing contracts. I don't know why you couldn't process a modification to include ones that were missed. It would have to be a bi-lateral agreement you couldn't unilaterally add clauses. I don't think you can use the Christine doctrine. Someone else might be able to elaborate, but I'm pretty sure most (if not all) legal doctrines are applied through court rulings, not CO's applying them.
  2. I’d support “the bring it on approach”. I had a dealing with a contractor once that was being ridiculously unreasonable and difficult regarding a certain issue. While I didn’t necessarily bully the guy, I found myself in turn being unjustifiably difficult as a result. In the end the contractor stood his ground and I took a walk of shame… wasn’t my finest hour.
  3. I agree the estimate would not be all that great. I was under the impression you’re using RS Means to price proposals not create estimates. Well, part of entering into a contract is understanding the inherent risks and make a business decision if the risk is worth it. From a CO standpoint if I was awarding JOCs, I would understand RS means isn’t all that accurate and ask contractors for pricing using a coefficient I previously mentioned. Doesn't RS Means let you do this? I may be wrong but for some reason I think the online version lets you. I'll log in a little later and find out. I remember asking for contractors to list what work they would self-perform and to provide a list of activities they would subcontract if the subcontract value was 5% or more of the awarded amount citing FAR 44.201-1. What I don't remember off the top of my head is if I ever asked for this using UPBs.
  4. I don't know that I'd consider it custom labor rates, but I've seen this done before where you take RS Means Cost * City Cost Index * Coefficient = Total price, where your coefficient includes profit, OH, etc. So if the contractor thinks RS Means prices are understated they could make up that cost in their coefficient (e.g. 1.10). If the contractor thinks they can beat RS Means pricing they could decrease their coefficient to make them more competitive (e.g. .95). I've also seen where you won't let contractors use Div 1 / Allowable Adjustment Factors when proposing pricing. Right or wrong I have no opinion for or against using Allowable Adjustment Factors.
  5. What is the idea being reconciling the difference between RS means and the Wage determination? Just because your IDIQ says you have to use RS Means to develop proposals doesn’t mean the prices RS means says is what the contractor actually pays. If I were pricing a job, and I pay my employees $10 more an hour than RS means states because I know they can work twice as fast, I’m still going to submit a proposal for what RS means says I should regardless if I could do the work for less or not. Of course that would make my pricing not as competitive. In my opinion, as long as the contractor is paying the rates on the wage determination, I wouldn’t care what the hourly rates RS Means says, and would only use the number of hours for negotiating a level of effort. *I'm assuming Task Orders placed are fixed price.
  6. I've seen union reps be asked to be onsite for specific events like OSHA inspections and labor interviews. I can't comment specifically why they would be asked and cannot cite anything that says it is improper. Is the fact the VA is asking for union reps to be onsite concerning to you? if yes why? or are you just inquiring for a general discussion?
  7. Newbie, Are you assuming the CO has no questions because you haven't heard anything from him or are you stating your team has no questions for the CO? Either way if you have not heard anything further and it's been a significant amount of time, you might want to follow up with the CO. Discussions are held to negotiate price, schedule, technical requirements, identify deficiencies, weaknesses, etc. See FAR 15.306(d), in part below. (d) Exchanges with offerors after establishment of the competitive range. Negotiations are exchanges, in either a competitive or sole source environment, between the Government and offerors, that are undertaken with the intent of allowing the offeror to revise its proposal. These negotiations may include bargaining. Bargaining includes persuasion, alteration of assumptions and positions, give-and-take, and may apply to price, schedule, technical requirements, type of contract, or other terms of a proposed contract. When negotiations are conducted in a competitive acquisition, they take place after establishment of the competitive range and are called discussions.
  8. I took a 400 level English class called Technical & Professional writing. Probably one of the most useful classes with real world application as it relates to contracting. Taught you how to write an email, memo, white paper, etc. and when the use of those would or would not be appropriate. Those kinds of things. From what I see, not all, but a good amount of people who don't have the 24 business credits end up just taking online classes where they don't really learn anything because they don't take it all that seriously and just need to check the box for the purpose of progressing.
  9. Doesn't sound like it applies to your requirement, but for reference regarding cascading. 13 CFR 125.2(e)(7) (7) Tiered evaluation of offers, or cascading. An agency cannot create a tiered evaluation of offers or “cascade” unless it has specific statutory authority to do so. This is a procedure used in negotiated acquisitions when the contracting officer establishes a tiered or cascading order of precedence for evaluating offers that is specified in the solicitation, which states that if no award can be made at the first tier, it will evaluate offers at the next lower tier, until award can be made. For example, unless the agency has specific statutory authority to do so, an agency is not permitted to state an intention to award one contract to an 8(a) BD Participant and one to a HUBZone SBC, but only if no awards are made to 8(a) BD Participants. http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=4bff17cb475a159d9ccdb8ae8ecd395d&node=se13.1.125_12&rgn=div8
  10. How would the clause 52.217-7 be used? The prescription says... "other than those for services."? Reason I ask, I tried to use that clause recently on a service contract and was told I couldn't use it. Wondering what your argument would be for using it.
  11. "Yes, but if you have already meet the minimum, just don't issue them anymore orders. Once the minimum is met you aren't any legal obligation to continue to use it" provided it is not a multiple award IDIQ and you don't have to consider the contractor in question when placing orders.
  12. You have this theme around not using terms interchangeable such as not using offers and using quotes. It would seem difficult to change every reference of the term offer or offerors in a part 13 solicitation. Are we allowed to tailor the SF1449? Offer and offeror are found a few times in this form. I think your instructions read well though.
  13. Not much in block 20. Number to reference on invoices, POP, and see continunation page for price/cost schedule and SOW. Nothing in blocks 23 and 24 as there was a price/cost schedule on the following pages. All referring to all CLINS the contractor priced. I didn't come here for validation. Basically i did something stupid and then remedied it the best way i thought possible. I came here to get other people's view and if they would have done it different. Some would have some would not have. That pretty much sums it up.
  14. I didn’t intend to mean I favor the contractor receive a bad rating. I was trying to state that if the government caught the price details in the quotation, they probably would have been rated unacceptable or unresponsive and never received the award to begin with. In this situation, The quotation number, date, and all were included in block 29. Dont know if it matters, but the page where the contractor added the footer indicating his quotation only included labor was one of 15 pages of unsolicited information, but the solicitation didn't put any page max for quotations.
  15. I don’t think I accidentally snookered anyone into anything. The contractor had a tiny footer on a page the government missed, and the contractor apparently missed parts were to be included in the contract. The requirement didn’t change between the solicitation and the contract. I thought it was pretty well established parts were to be included. Parts were ~10% of the total price. Don, yes the contractor signed the purchase order. What happened was we terminated the contract for convenience and paid the contractor the cost of the scheduled maintenance along with the cost of replacement parts (no unscheduled maintenance or any other work was performed). Although it may have been an honest mistake (giving the contractor the benefit of the doubt) I determined the contractor should have received an unacceptable rating as their quotation did not adhere to the requirements of the solicitation, so I had the contractor finish the scheduled maintenance (which had already been started) and then terminated the rest of the contract as stated above. Had this been protested, I probably would have had to take corrective action (hard to say though). Whether or not that was a good decision I don’t know, a couple people above me thought I ought to give the contractor his requested increase. Given the fact patterns (although hard to discuss here in every detail), I think I was right (or most right) and I’d do it again given similar fact patterns. The question in a more simple form, what do you do when you award a contract to a contractor who should have been rated unacceptable, but they perform as they stated they would, which is unacceptable?
  16. We’re talkin ~half a mil using the test program, so yes a purchase order was issued, but accepted by the contractor establishing a contract. The SOW specifically stated the contractor was to provide parts and labor at their expense. I don’t know if the contractor thinks they’re entitled as a matter or right or not, but simple concerned they will be operating at a loss if they were to finish performance the way it was written.
  17. Had a commercial RFQ . The requirement was for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of equipment for one year. Contract was a FFP and was to include all parts and labor at the contractor’s expense. Received three quotations. The technical team rated each contractor technically acceptable. The contractor who received the award submitted their quote but added small writing at the bottom of their price volume that stated the price only includes labor and they would invoice additionally for parts. This was not the intent of the requirement and the contractor has partially started the work. The contractor states they would want to change the price they submitted now that they have been made aware their price was to include parts as well as labor. The proposed price increase by the contractor still keeps them the lowest price of the three quotations received (Evaluation was LPTA), and they've been doing an outstanding job. Without regards to whether or not a FFP contract was the proper contract type, and the fact the awardee should probably have been rated technically unacceptable and never have received the award, what do you do and why? (This was a previous situation that has been handled, wonder if others would handle it the same way). 1. Terminate the contract 2. Modify the contract 3. Other - As a follow up question, does this happen often at other contracting offices? The technical team says acceptable, but later find out they were unacceptable? Unless the CO happens to be a subject matter expert for the particular requirement, or at least familiar with the type of work, who are they to question the technical team’s evaluation as long as they followed what the solicitation said it was going to do?
  18. Read this artical about OFPP's vision to improve Federal acquisitions this morning. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=65&sid=3755979&pid=0&page=1 The last part of the article intrigued me, shrinking the FAR. I’m all for less regulations and more room to think and get things done creatively. My concern is that it seems every time a regulation is taken away, it seems a new regulation is established. Guess we’ll have to wait and see, but it looks like this vision is a positive one, based solely on this article.
  19. Vern, We need better training (a), not more. For classroom training we need better content that is more relevant for the specific mission of the agency. For example, the majority of what I do is not acquisitions of major systems, and what I learn in a classroom environment is all about DOD. 90% of what is taught is not relevant at all to the specific position I’m currently in as my agency supports research and hospitals. Also; if there were an (e) it would be applicability. I can understand the theory behind anything I study and try to learn; however, applying that theory in a real life scenario is the struggle I’ve experienced. In accounting, you learn “how” to do it, then you learn the “why” its done that way. It seems in government contracting you learn the “why” you do things this way or that way, but not the “how” to actually do it. In terms of more experience, my organization had a internal policy that stated we could only take one residence class per year. Their idea was that people were getting promoted too fast based on education and not experience, so when they would get promoted too early, the employees were not performing at the level they should be. H2H, “I would tie promotions to learning. I would tie salary increases to learning. I would provide monetary incentives for learning”. Why? You can be the smartest guy/girl in the world and still not be able to get anything done. I had a discussion once with a controller at a fortune 100 company, and he told me anytime someone interviews with straight A’s on their transcripts it raises a red flag as in this particular persons experience, one can read a chapter answer questions, but cant think for themselves when there is not something specific that tells you how something is done. (Cant think for themselves). I received a level II FAC-C this year, should I be rewarded for that? How about you give me a year and see my results and reward me on getting stuff done, not training.
  20. I think they’re easy enough, but I believe there is a lot of hearsay about schedules, and little things an average CO wouldn’t know until they had a chance to procure such requirements. For example, I didn’t know you couldn’t procure Architect/Engineering (A&E), and Design-Construction services as defined by the Brooks Act and FAR part 36 on GSA until I actually received my first procurement request for such a requirement. Also, my very first protest was from a GSA schedule contractor who didn’t get the award. I remember many managers tried to talk me through my protest and several told me GSA procurements were not protestable. For so many people in my office to think that, someone must have verbally told them as I couldn’t imagine it is written anywhere. Seems it was such a popular belief that GSA has posted on their website that GSA schedule orders may be protested. http://www.gsa.gov/MASSTUDENT/section7_6.html “Contrary to popular belief, contractors may protest GSA Schedule orders. The limitation for non-Schedule multiple-award IDIQs found in FAR 16.505(a)(9) does not apply to MAS contracts.” FAR 8.404 (e) The procedures under subpart 33.1 are applicable to the issuance of an order or the establishment of BPA against a schedule contract. Maybe at one time before I started this job they weren’t able to be protested, but ever since I’ve been here they have been.
  21. Peperoni! The first solicitation I ever posted was for holter/event monitoring, and I was told to remove company markings from proposals prior to the evaluations. In the rationale for the rating of a particular contractor, it mentioned the actual contractor’s corporate name. When I asked the technical people on the SSEP, they mentioned that they had googled a couple of the salient characteristics of these monitors, and when they matched a sample event report submitted with a proposal, to one on the contractor’s website, well… pretty easy to connect the dots (whether or not the panel should be googling additional information about an offer is another discussion). I questioned why we were doing this to my immediate manager, at one time a QA individual had introduced the idea, but in the end, he stopped making make me redact technical proposals. I see little benefit to doing this.
  22. Understand about the BPA and calls being made by specified individuals. I did loose this argument at work and ended up going with an IDIQ. Their reason was you couldn't use a FFP PO to order an estimated quantities. No one proved to me you cant, so my argument was, why not?
  23. The requirement was for blood for a hospital. This particular hospital averaged 300 orders each year over the past 5 years. To me, it doesn't seem feasible to issue a BPA call each time an order is needed. sometimes this blood is needed within a couple hours. The problem is, you cant really forecast when someone is going to show up at an ER, so the idea was, take a lump sum of funding, put it on a PO, and pick up the phone or sent an email to order as needed. *the analogy to the repairs was just to ask why would consideration matter?
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