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cs123

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Posts posted by cs123

  1. No, our organization does not have an electronic system or tool that feeds to the GPE so I take it your opinion is that we cannot claim the synopsis exception?  

    Still would be nice for someone to shed light from the drafters' perspective because the FAR language isn't clear or even needed considering the resultant synopsis would be posted to FBO regardless.   The one advantage is that if you use a "system" to post your proposed contract action with a feed to FBO, then technically, per the FAR verbiage, you do NOT have to post an award synopsis in the "system" or FBO (not sure if the FAR drafters intended this to be the case). 

  2. For the orange text, as shown below, the debate surrounds trying to understand the meaning of this orange colored text.  The text speaks to an exception but the second half of the sentence seems to speak to still having to post a link of some sort on FBO to access your proposed contact action that must still exist on another platform (e.g., FedBid, Agency website, etc.).  Thoughts?  My interpretation of this orange text is as follows: One condition for the subject exception is that your "proposed contract action" must be posted on another platform; however, the chosen platform must interface and provide a link to your notice of "proposed contract action" on FBO.

           (ii) Will be made through a means that provides access to the notice of proposed contract action through the GPE; and

    For the 2nd colored text, as shown below, the debate is the same as the above: do you get an exception to the award synopsis if your selected platform had interfaced with FBO and posted a link to notice of proposed contracts (first synopsis)?
           (ii) Was made through a means where access to the notice of proposed contract action was provided through the GPE; and

    Thanks!

  3. Question 1) For a 100k SAP procurement, is a synopsis of proposed contract required?  There is an exception in the FAR for the requird notice, but there has been debate regarding the meaning of the below orange text.

    FAR 5.202 Exception - (a) (13) The proposed contract action--

    • (i) Is for an amount not expected to exceed the simplified acquisition threshold;

      (ii) Will be made through a means that provides access to the notice of proposed contract action through the GPE; and

      (iii) Permits the public to respond to the solicitation electronically; 

    Question 2) For a 100k SAP procurement, is a synopsis of contract award required?  There is an exception in the FAR for the required notice, but there has been debate regarding the meaning of the below red text:

     FAR 5.301 (b) (6) The contract action

    • (i) Is for an amount not greater than the simplified acquisition threshold;

      (ii) Was made through a means where access to the notice of proposed contract action was provided through the GPE; and

      (iii) Permitted the public to respond to the solicitation electronically; or

  4. After Googling oversight controls for T&M contracts, I see proper oversight can include monthly meetings, travel approval procedures, deliverable review procedures, process to travel and inspect when minimum standards aren't met, etc. I guess it can be as simple as that. If anyone has anything to add, especially if they have really good procedures that worked well for them or that were innovative, feel free to respond.

  5. I recently perused the U.S. Commerce OIG report entitled "The Department’s Awarding and Administering of Time-and Materials and Labor-Hours Contracts Needs Improvement". See link below, if interested.

    One of the findings was that the Program Office failed to provide proper oversight of work completed under T&M tasks. Are there any sample QASPs out there for T&M work that anyone here would recommend?

    http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/OIG-14-001-A.pdf

    Thank you in advance!

  6. My response to the first of the above three questions is, Yes. Read the clause. It should be obvious that you can use it in a service contract in the scenario that you described. Its use is not limited to supply contracts. You should probably delete the third sentence of the clause, since, presumably, the contract otherwise specifies the timing and frequency of the option tasks.

    Thanks Vern. I read the prescription of the clause and it says to insert the clause "in solicitations and contracts, other than those for services", so that it why I was thinking it could not be used for services.

  7. I work for a civilian agency too and actually had to go over worksheets every quarter (four times per year) with my supervisors for three years that were similar to the referenced tool. It ended up largely being a check-the box activity, and, I think, the agency's method of showing on paper that we (the entry-level workforce) "developed".

  8. What are everyone's thoughts on the below hypothetical scenario. I have a real life scenario that would benefit from the answering of the below questions. I ask these questions because I am perplexed because I think the FAR does not really address the below situation/scenario.

    HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO:
    I have a contract set up as follows:

    (1) CLIN 00001 - Base Year (12 months) - Janitorial Services
    (2) CLIN 00002 - Optional Vacuuming Task (task can be ordered at any time during the first four months of the Base Year Period of Performance)

    (3) CLIN 00003 - Optional Cleaning Task (Wash and Rinse all Trash Cans) (task can be ordered at any time during the first four months of the Base Year Period of Performance)

    After CLIN 0001 is exercised and I have a year of janitorial services, under what clause authority SHOULD the contract have included to properly exercise CLINs 00002 and 00003? As everyone knows, the FAR only has two Option Clauses for extending service contracts, but which clause(s) should be used to order an optional task for a service that does not extend the period of performance of the entire contract?

    Can I use 52.217-7 Option for Increased Quantity--Separately Priced Line Item for these option CLINs, even though the contract is a service contract. What would be the implications for the inclusion?

    Should I have my policy office develop an Agency contract clause that addresses the nature of the above scenario?

    Thanks for all of the help in advance!

    For reference, a similar scenario was posted on Ask the Professor:
    https://dap.dau.mil/aap/pages/qdetails.aspx?cgiSubjectAreaID=3&cgiQuestionID=113293%C2'>

  9. cs123, I just thumbed through "The Selection Decision" portion of "Selection, Award, Notices and Debriefings" in Chapter 6 of Formation of Government Contracts, 3rd Edition by Nash and Cibinic to confirm what I said and thought.

    Because the FAR doesn't really discuss the trade-off process in much detail, most of the policy concerning the trade-off analysis in formulating the selection decision has been derived from decisions in contract award controversies. I think that the narrative pretty well backs up my statement that there has to be something to trade-off in order to perform a trade-off analysis. Generally required when a lower priced, conforming offer is or isn't selected for award and/or where equally priced proposals vary in non-price areas.

    In your case, you haven't told me that there is anything to trade-off. If you have access to the latest edition of said book, I suggest reading it. If you don't, you SHOULD purchase and read it - not just for this question but for professional reference and growth. That and Administration of Government Contracts are two of the best bookls ever written for Government Contracting. If and when I get some time, I will peruse the Army JAG manuals to see if they discuss the trade-off analysis. I'm behind on personal matters as it is. :)

    Thanks, I actually have that edition. Was able to get it for less than $20 used recently. I'll peruse the referenced section a little bit closer in the coming days. I agree, the book is very useful. Thanks for the information.

  10. I think that the adjectival rating approach can also make sense if a factor is said to be more or less important than other factors.

    The proposers need to known what is most important to the goverrnment and the order of importance of the stated factors and subfactors if resources, budget or other considerations restrain what can be provided.

    Sure, it can be tricky where one firm concentrates on the most important factor and another firm offers significant value in more than one other factor that, when looked at in the whole, "outweigh" the strengths or value offered in only the most important factor. However, that could occur using the numerical rating system, too.

    My Formation of Government Contracts book, 3rd edition (outdated, I know), page 932, basically states that the overall tradeoff of the merits/dismerits of proposals trumps the stated relative of importance. I tried to trace back the court decisions that were referenced but could only find one online....

  11. Thanks for the information. Here are the answers to your questions.

    1) What are you "trading off" and what type of awards are you making?

    Answer: Various technical factors/subfactors and price

    2) Are you buying something from one of the firms in the initial competition? Or is the competition only for inclusion in the pool of three contractors to compete for subsequent task or delivery orders?

    Answer: There is a minimum that will be fulfilled for all awardees as required for IDIQ awards, but for the purposes of my question its $100.00; therefore, 99.9% of the subsequent requirements will be competed among the pool.

    3) What "trade-off" is involved if the three aren't competing for an award to all three.
    Answer: Not sure but I have heard a legal advisor say that you still need to do a tradeoff and justify to award to 3 vice 2 or 1. I wanted some solid information to show why this is correct/incorrect.

    4) If you are going issue an order as part of the initial competition to only one of the firms, then you would need to perform a trade-off analysis.
    Answer: All Offerors will get the $100.00 order without competition.

    5) If there were more than three firms competing for base contract awards and inclusion in the pool, then you would perform a trade-off analysis to determine which three firms offer the best value to include. And you would also have to decide which of the three offers the best value, if you are going to issue an order as part of the initial competition as described above.
    Response: So for the award documentation, I assume you suggest to state that as only three offers were received that were acceptable no trade-off analysis is required as it is in the Government best interest to three for increased Fair Opportunity competition, etc., etc.?

  12. Quick Question: If you are competing a large IDIQ requirement and you stated that you intend to award to three Offerors using the tradeoff process and then only three Offerors each submit a single offer that is determined to meet the requirements (so you have three viable offers), does a Contracting Officer need to conduct a tradeoff analysis or can the CO proceed and award to all three, especially considering the minimum guaranteed amount is $100.00?

  13. Good thread to read.

    My gripe with the order of importance is related to the fact that when Technical Factors A, B, and C have differing "importance" then how does that impact all aspects of the resultant tradeoff analysis? During the tradeoff analysis/decision, you are generally selecting the awardee(s) based on trading off (1) the perceived benefits stemming from assessed strengths, (2) the perceived disadvantages stemming from assessed weaknesses/deficiencies, and (3) the risks assessed by risks. Of course the Source Selection Official reviews strengths/weaknesses, etc., for validity, etc.

    Usually during the evaluation process, I don't think evaluators are considering the order of importance.

    One question I have is: when your solicitation has varying levels of importance for technical factors, does that mean that the strengths/benefits assessed for one factor have a lower baseline for the qualification of a strength than strength/benefits assessed under a less important factor? I think the answer is no since the context of the strengths/benefits are important (intelligent decision making), but it might be worth a discussion. I can see how my answer could be wrong since a protest could come about and point to misleading on the eval. criteria.

    Based on the bolded above, why not always just state that all technical factors are of equal importance and then let the assessed benefits, disadvantages, and risks duel it out and determine which proposal(s) are technically superior to other proposals? Or is the reason that we state differing levels of importance for technical factors is to highlight to Offerors which factors the Government most values potential benefits from (and to also highlight the factors where weaknesses/deficiencies have more potential for a negative impact)?

    I still like stating that technical factors are of equal importance from a business point of view, in most cases.

    If anybody has good samples of trade off analysis (redacted of course) that you wouldn’t mind sharing, please PM me.

  14. Vern: To answer your question, no.

    I thoroughly understand fundamental IDIQ rules, I just think that the GSA Schedules could be made more flexible for the Government’s benefit (a change applicable only to GSA Schedule ordering).

    jonmjohnson: Thanks for the RFQ language. The FAR or GSA’s guidance doesn’t discuss the strengths and weaknesses, but in some situations it could be beneficial to give this to vendors for their own benefit (especially small businesses), especially if provided beyond the protest window. I think 8.402(f) has been discussed in other forum threads.

  15. FAR 8.4 is overall streamlined in my opinion. However, there are some things that could be improved:

    (1) Brief explanations should be defined. As a result, DHS does not recommend that strengths and weaknesses are provided to unsuccessful Quoters/Offerors, among other things.

    (2) Advice provided on GSA Interact and on GSA’s website seemingly prohibits “discussions”. FAR 8.4 is silent on the issue. However, a good amount of complex FAR 8.4 procurements will likely require discussions, which puts COs in a position to make GSA procurements appear more like FAR 15 procurements.

    (3) FAR 8.402 (f) needs to be reconsidered. This generally prohibits the CO from ordering open-market items that exceed $3,000.00 from GSA Schedule contracts. I suspect that for offers received for most GSA Schedule supply procurements exceeding 150k, a majority of offers will contain “open market items”, many of which will likely be unmarked by Quoters/Offerors. I think that it should be permissible to allow up to 10% of vendors’ quotes to contain open-market items so that vendors can best meet the Government requirements. To me it doesn’t make business sense to throw out a Quote on a $1,000,000 requirement because a single $4,000.00 quote item is considered “open market”. This actually really complicates Government IT procurements off of GSA.

  16. Maybe you could consider setting the requirement aside for Small Business (SB), which eliminates TAA applicability per the FAR (FAR 25.401 (a)(1)). This does bring a potential issue of dealing with Non-Manufacturer Waivers for items that domestic SBs can't make in the U.S., but I presume you will be able to use some of the SBA's Class Waivers for your procurement (and request individual waivers, as applicable). Regardless, this would be an easier process that looking into TAA waivers. A set aside may be okay since there may be an adequete amount of U.S. SB dealers that can meet your requirement.

    http://www.sba.gov/content/non-manufacturer-waivers

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