CuriousProcurementAnalyst

Thank you for all the input. I couldn't find a way to incorporate what our customer was hoping for with our multiple award services contract, but I thought I'd give the creative pros here a chance to weigh in. Thanks for all the suggestions. A single award would not work due to the sheer volume of anticipated task orders required for very disparate programs and customers. I don't think one vendor would be have the capacity. We are also anticipating doing a small business set-aside so that would really not be possible. I used 4 awards as an example so I can circle back to company A quickly and easily in my scenario example; the actual amount of planned vendors is actually more than double that amount. Because we are trying to streamline the ordering for these types of services across a large agency, and because the number of contracts is anticipated to be more than 4, I don't think this would be the most effective way to meet this requirement. Thanks for the suggestion though! I appreciate all of the help!

After being in the procurement arena for over 13 years, I finally have a question to ask those that know this business best! Our agency is contemplating putting a Multiple Award IDIQ in place for services. It is anticipated that the awardees will all be best in breed within their industry. As you know, with the normal fair opportunity process the govt releases an RFQ in which the IDIQ holders submit bids in response to the task order requirements, including pricing. Award is made to the quoter determined to offer the best value based on the RFQ criteria. Our customer in this case is requesting that, in lieu of doing a competition for task orders, we put a process in place where orders are given to vendors in a specific order. For example, if 4 awards were made to Companies A through D, when requirements come out, the first task order would go to Company A, the 2nd task order to Company B, 3rd to Company C, 4th to Company D, and the 5th task order would go to Company A, etc. etc. The IDIQ program office said that they would like the task orders all to be of a limited size or value, meaning that most task orders would be relatively the same size (which I think would be difficult, but I'm not the program office). I am unsure whether the IDIQ program office has gotten stakeholder buy-in on this approach. With this approach all vendors would receive nearly the same amount of task order awards over the course of the IDIQ PoP, which is not the case in all multiple award contracts in which some may not win any or very few task order awards, while other are very successful. As long as the task order award process is included in the IDIQ RFP, do you all think this meets the criteria of "fair opportunity" as it's meant in 16.505? Please provide any positive, negative or other opinions about this approach. Any input regarding legal precedence, risks, etc., would be appreciated.