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Self Employed

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  1. 31 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

     

    But if you guys are just bored, please feel free to pointlessly continue.

     

    I don't necessarily think of additional questions as pointless. Not everyone reading this forum has all of the answers. One of WIFCON's greatest uses is for posterity. Not even for necessarily the right/wrong answer, but arguments made for or against a way forward that might become relevant to someone else in a different application entirely. Whether you personally value the added information/detail on questions asked is certainly important to you, but not everyone who visits this website publishes articles on federal acquisition and may very well encounter something similar in their future experience(s) in a niche acquisition field.

    The questions surrounding the type of funding and the different way(s) offices conduct proposal prep are certainly valid directly related and tangential topics respectively.

     

     

  2. On 3/17/2023 at 11:55 AM, Retreadfed said:

    Who is paying for this contract?  Will U.S. appropriated funds be used?

    FMS country. 11X8242 funds, FMS trust fund. Office of the President. Technically the account is subject to apportionment, but my understanding is that when funds are implemented from the Letter of Offer and Acceptance the FMR considers it a disbursement.

     

    2 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

    As the OP stated, the conditions for use of the two clauses at 52.232-18 and -19 do not seem to be applicable. In addition, funds won’t be available from the Country X through the US Treasury until the second quarter of next FY, in the next “Calendar Year”.

    It would seem, at first glance that there is plenty of time to solicit, receive a proposal, and negotiate a contract to be funded in the next calendar year. Without any more information, my first impression would be - don’t try to price a contract this early that can’t start for 9-10 months out from now. And definitely don’t award a contract in advance of funding.

    When the US Military was still active in the former Panama Canal Zone in the 1990’s, our USACE (Corps of Engineers) District advertised many O&M funded backlog of construction (maintenance, repair and alteration) contracts with award subject to the availability of funds. The industry was well aware and cooperated. As excess funds were being released by U.S. Army Southern Command and made available, we’d award as many contracts as possible prior to the expiration of the FY funds at midnight.

    Of course, we never awarded any of those contracts without funding. The original poster’s scenario is consistent with that.

    But we proceeded up to the point of award prior to obtaining funding, with industry’s full knowledge and participation.

    Thanks Joel -- Similar thoughts. 

     

      

    On 3/17/2023 at 11:34 AM, Vern Edwards said:

    When I was a systems and R&D CO for the Air Force Systems Command with an unlimited warrant, I negotiated a lot of sole source contracts before funds were available. It was never a problem and never questioned. We didn't use the term "business clearance" in those days. We used the term "Contract Review Committee clearance," which took place after JAG review. Sometimes a contract needed approval by the Secretary of the Air Force after Committee clearance and CO signature. In such cases we could not submit a contract for secretarial approval before funds were available.

    I regret to inform you that those terms (business and contract clearance,) have been codified in the AF supplement, and even worse -- additional requirements codified by PEO and therein each individual division.

    No process before the process.

    That said, provisions you have mentioned do not apply here.

     

      

    On 3/18/2023 at 10:09 AM, C Culham said:

    My thought relates more to how are personnel efforts to perform the pre-work are being funded.   Country X  not having the funds available implies that funds have not been made available to the Federal government.   Is funding for personnel wrapped up in the Country X funding to be provided?  If YES does the Air Force have appropriated funds otherwise to perform the pre-work?   If NO does the Air Force appropriations allow the pre-award work in advance of funding from Country X, or in other words is it an authorized project that allows for use of Air Force appropriated funds for personnel?

     

     

    I probably touch a dozen different cases. I am technically completely funded by one case. When there are personnel who are not assigned a MPCN they are admin-funded. Typically an office carries a certain amount of admin funded positions, which if goes on frequent enough requires them to be moved to an office with a slot to assign them to. As you can imagine, America's recent arms dealing demonstration in Ukraine is accelerating  international demand for materiel. 

     

    In an FMS office that pre-work is the cost of doing business. On each case USG takes a %/cut for Manpower/Admin of the case. DCMA/DCAA also take their own cut. Pre-Letter of Request work often includes requests for a rough order of magnitude, and 3-4 meetings with the KTR for our program managers to actually understand their requirement. Estimate is blessed by blessing division, and then sent to country for signature for an official Letter of Request. This codifies what the country is actually looking for. Usually they're looking at not just the U.S. but many other sources to fulfill their needs. We might get this far with a country who wants to do business. Until this goes out and then a Letter of Offer and Acceptance is signed, there is no agreement between USG/Country. Even when the LOA is signed, until they send the check in the mail (designated bank,) funds are received and processed via trust fund.

    As Joel mentioned it's treated as overhead until you get to the phase of a formal proposal, and typically only your large(er) businesses bother with proposal prep costs.

  3. 14 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

    Your question was poorly thought out and poorly worded, as was your last response. If your acquisition does not meet the conditions for contracting conditioned upon availability of funds, then why are you asking about it?

    I think you are correct that it's a matter of local policy.

    There is nothing precluding solicitation before funds are available.

    Your references refer to what needs to be included if the contract is to be let prior to funds being available, but I know I can't let the contract.

    My question is to how far I can go after receipt of solicitation up to contract award, which contains multiple phases.

    I have stated I believe the stop sign will either be at business or contract clearance, which is specific to my agency, USAF. 

    That is what the OP asks.

  4. 4 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

    UNDER FAR YOU CAN GO ALL THE WAY TO CONTRACT AWARD. THAT'S WAY THEY CREATED A CONTRACT CLAUSE ABOUT AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS.

    A CONTRACT CLAUSE! A CONTRACT CLAUSE! YOU WOULDN'T NEED A CONTRACT CLAUSE IF YOU COULDN'T ENTER INTO CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS.

     

     

    Only if you meet the conditions at FAR 32.703-2(a)/(b), which has been previously stated before this bold and italicized post that the acq does not.

    Thus, it is only included/referenced in the solicitation.

    4 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

     

    The answer to your question is a matter of local policy. You seem to think that "business clearance" means the same thing to everyone. It doesn't.

     

    Which is why I'm asking for thoughts/experience(s).

     

    Thanks for your contribution(s).

     

     

     

  5. Anticipate releasing a solicitation subject to availability of funds.

    How far along in the process can I get without funds? Can I achieve business clearance (negotiate with contractor with agreement of negotiated amount contingent upon availability of funds?) and assume that Contract Clearance will be where the stop sign is at?

     

    (Country X does not have funds avail this year, manpower to be provided this CY to work pre-award, but adtl lines for buy will not be implemented until next CY.)

  6. 2 hours ago, formerfed said:

     

    There are two routes 1102s can take - resist until they drag you out of your office, or adapt and be part of the change movement.  There are likely rewards for those that do the later.

     

    Bingo.

    Do the best you can within the confines of the system.

    I look forward to real bullets being written about innovation in our field utilizing and incorporating these emerging technologies.

     

     

  7. 17 hours ago, WifWaf said:

    This is going to really screw with people in the formative years of A.I.  By example I just watched a video on YouTube of a speech Thomas Sowell made in 1999.  I didn’t verify anything about the date or transcripts - just took the video title’s word for it.  Wait till A.I. starts posting these videos too.  Who’s going to watch every last word for a bit of ideological tweaking by an A.I. that is just “voice robbing” the speaker?  Nefarious actors could do a lot of social engineering in this way.  By the time a meticulous viewer realizes it’s fake, the masses will have already received an illegitimate message.  And in today’s day and age the masses won’t research beyond an expert’s (supposed) opinion.

    Now, what if a nefarious state actor’s A.I., knowing all of a federal employee’s SF 86 contents (via the OPM data breach), started placing dead-air calls to that fed’s phone number on the form, and gained not only their past 7 years of personal information but also the ability to mimic the fed’s voice?

    Funny you should mention that.

    There are unclass calls for deepfakes created by A.I. that already exist but not for non-commercial purposes, and DoD is interested. (4.3.1.4.)

     

     

    AI is a critical future technology that is necessary as unmanned platforms become more prevalent.

    Just as with DARPA, these military applications will trickle down into civil applications, to include augmenting our work capabilities as an 1102. Some will trickle. AI will pressure wash.

    While it would be nice to be able to "take it slow," the ongoing great power competition unfolding will not wait. AI is a technology that our near peer competitors are in some respects "ahead," of our capabilities. The U.S. controls announced last year have expanded beyond the U.S. alone. The computing power required to sustain AI is playing out in a digital arms race in real time, globally.

    GAO article

    AI%20graphic.jpg.webp?itok=j3829SIq

     

    Just with other innovative technologies of their time, some might cling to other ways/means -- but those that do will see their capabilities suffer. I don't think it's unreasonable to view AI's implementation as very soon, and likely sudden. 

  8. 3 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

    @Self EmployedIn 1963 the Senate Committee on Government Operations heald hearings over the course of several months to investigate a very large military aircraft source selection decision. The aircraft was designated TFX, which stood for Tactical Fighter Experimental. It was the aircraft that would become the FB-111, the first operational variable wing aircraft, a fighter-bomber. The source selection decision was very controversial, because the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) rejected the recommendation of a board of four-star generals and admirals, who were not happy about it. So the Senate decided to investigate.

    The source selection procedures were not as formal as they are now. The SOW was issued to prospective offerors in September 1961. The contract was awarded in November 1962, after four rounds of proposal revisions. Pretty fast by today's standards for a big procurement.

    The very first witness at the hearings was John Stack, a very distinguished government aeronautical engineer who had helped develop the requirement. At one point a senator asked him when the aircraft would be ready for use. Here is what he said:

    He was speaking about the overall acquisition process, not just the source selection process.

    Anyway, I thought you might get a kick out of that.

    Sixty years ago. The more things change, the worse things get. We have had source selections within the last decade that have taken longer than World War II. The first operational FB-111 flew on December 21, 1964, less than two years after the source selection decision. Now think of the F-35.

     

    It is absolutely true. While I am hesitant to agree with Mr. Stack's particular statement in total without understanding his direct qualms (I have seen a fair share of technical evaluations and requirements from engineers,) acquisition processes are nuts. HHQ leadership only sees THEIR processes. They don't see the center level processes. They don't see the PEO processes (I have a policy letter that mandates an ESIS for ALL acquisitions - regardless of dollar value, services or supply (we are mostly supply, with no services greater than $7.5M). I have brought this up to policy representatives who have shrugged. I had to drag my program managers kicking and screaming that not all acquisitions require a written acquisition plan, and therefore do not necessarily require an ASP.) They sure as hell don't see divisional processes (for example, remnants of configuration control boards now being utilized to monitor configuration of commercial aircraft for countries who don't maintain a given configuration anyway,) that are non-value added but "have always been done this way." Let's process another RAD for an AFI exempt requirement.

    I have caught offices writing a memo about which mod authority to use and spending THOUSANDS of self-inspection hours discussing how best to document the memo when the requirement stemmed from old AFMCFARS language that was moved from AFMCFARS MP to AFMCFARS PGI, to AFFARS PGI -- half a decade after it was moved to PGI -- and eventually to the dustbin of history. STILL BEING WRITTEN. It's INSANE.

    They wave the flag and say they've innovated by reducing some peer review threshold or another -- but miss the forest of where the time sink occurs.

    I was more optimistic under previous leadership, but current regime seems to be more recalcitrant. So much about acquisition culture has changed within the past ten years, and I blame a lot of the lag in shift towards streamlining on the rigid, inflexible practices of yore (that those in charge know/thrived in.)

    So they'll say the processes are being diminished, while indirectly gumming it up in alternative ways or not noticing that the real meat is further down the line.

    Yay we cut a peer review requirement threshold. Mission accomplished.

    Never mind the 100+ non-required processes being dutifully performed every day for no reason at all.

  9. On 2/28/2023 at 9:43 PM, joel hoffman said:

    Four of seven proposers are already technically acceptable; three more could be made technically acceptable, which is the only requirement for award of a base contract. 

    LPTA for award of seed task(s).

    2-3 months for discussions , revisions, reviews??

    Edit: Hard for me to comprehend taking that long.  

    Edit: Since you are conducting price competition for “seed tasks”, would the revisions include revised pricing for any unawarded seed tasks?

    Edit: Would all seven entities, including the one to four initial awardee(s) be included in the final revised competition?

    EDIT: it would appear that, as a minimum,  a solicitation amendment would be necessary to make a partial award now and continue the competition for additional awards, and awards of any remaining seed tasks. 

    Edit: Which brings up the question of whether this revised approach would be a cardinal change to the original competition, requiring re-opening the competition to allow other firms to compete?  

    —————————————————-
    You say you want to award 8-10 ID/IQ’s. But the current universe is seven proposals…

    I'm assuming the original solicitation included no mention of on-ramp procedures as well -- which could be/ could have been utilized to alleviate some of the concerns. Ideally these concerns would be handled during the source selection.

    Probably multiple options. Could even consider going nuclear, amending the solicitation with the intent to award all qualifying offerors / drop eval of cost/price if you want to really wind up your JA depending on your agency and business size, but then you are additional lead time to the TO you're using for the seed/sample. Also doesn't change that you have unsat proposals, so discussions seem the best route.

    https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/02/2020-12764/federal-acquisition-regulation-evaluation-factors-for-multiple-award-contracts

  10. On 2/28/2023 at 4:46 PM, Vern Edwards said:

    Question: Why five years? 

    What so magic about five years? Why not four and a half years, four years, or three years? Is there anything inherent in the requirement that makes five-year POPs necessary, or is it just lack of imagination? Just don't want to do a new procurement any time soon?

    A source selection is a substantial investment of personnel resources of multiple disciplines over an extended period of time, depending on the dollar amount and type of acquisition. Some agencies require multi-level review or involvement of sub-divisions such as "Acquisition Centers of Excellence." Some source selections can take a better part of a year - or longer. In the event of a two-year IDIQ, you will essentially begin planning the next shortly after the first.

    The lack of imagination is inevitably correlated to the lack of resources, namely personnel and time.

    Besides, say you award a five year IDIQ. It's not a requirements contract. Nothing precludes you afaik from finding creative reasoning to establish another IDIQ prior to expiration for any number of reasons, provided a minimum guarantee has already been provided for.

  11. 14 hours ago, C Culham said:

    I love the eloquence the writers speak with regarding the impending disruption/security risk of future tech interfacing with antiquated systems.

    I also love knowing that our payroll system still runs on a modified command prompt app, and that antiquated contract writing systems meant we lost access to ours for three months one summer due to band-aid/gum coding going awry.

     

  12. 11 hours ago, Witty_Username said:

    Saw an interesting interaction with fargpt.com from a colleague. After giving a decent enough answer to one question, on the next question: "Can I award on a sole source basis if my requirement is under $250k without competing the requirement? What about FAR 13.104", FARGPT gave an answer that included "This is in accordance with FAR 13.104 which states: 'The dollar threshold is not a prohibition against publicizing an award of a smaller amount when publicizing would be advantageous to industry or to the Government' (FAR 13.104(a)(1), page 197)" which appears to be an entirely fabricated reference (since FAR 13.104 says nothing of the sort, and the quoted language is actually in FAR 5.301).

    I had read about chatGPT doing something similar, making up plausible sounding, but incorrect, references. Since we can't see under the hood of AIs we'll have to learn to trust them through experience. Not there yet...
     

    I actually prefer ChatGPT to this new version which is making its rounds. This version seems very opaque and makes poor answers confidently. ChatGPT would just give general information on the subject if it couldn't pinpoint it imo.

     

  13. On 2/20/2023 at 2:13 PM, formerfed said:

    “ In order to apply this thinking to something else, like software design, development, and delivery, wouldn't an agency need Congress to pass a statute giving it this kind of authority?“

    Nope.  Agencies have been using this approach over decades with “waterfall” development.  While many will argue having a single contractor do it all as opposed to competition among vendors at various stages, it often is done with one contractor doing it all.  The acquisition is broken up in the various stages -requirements analysis, design, development, testing, implementation, training, deployment, etc.  A common argument is braking the work into pieces that can be competed among a limited pool of multiple awardees so you aren’t at the mercy of the company that started.  No special authority is needed other than sometimes having to justify your acquisition process with OMB to get funding.

    Agile is now a "bad word." Here I am still reminiscing about its praises being sang less than 4-5 years ago...

     

    The more things change...

     

    Government IGCE/SOO are just what they are, estimates.

    In construction, design/build or design/bid/build is often done with a catalog software. There are many out there. I've utilized RSMeans.

    Civil Engineering is our PM/SME, and develop the SOO. These are GS-7, 9, 11's typically -- or for the very experienced in the group, 12. Our actual engineers typically only worked design or A/E aspects. The SOO is created in RSMeans, but is a giant WAG. Often the person developing it might have a background in a particular trade. They might knock that trade out of the park. They are not a world-beater though when it comes to estimating. Neither is their supervisor, who approves their estimate. When the proposal came in over an internally agreed upon %, a revision was made with provided justification as to what changed and why (ex: "I forgot three other buildings. Didn't realize mold remediation cost so much. Incorrect sizing/amount of materials in initial estimate.") Thus, we had a revised IGCE.

     

    For pure A/E design, it was/is often billed as a way for an organization who has budgetary constraints to finalize design options and defer construction to a later year.

    In reality, what happens is the final design is approved, those who approved it leave or rotate prior to its utilization, and the new contracting officer is unfamiliar with FAR 36.608/ responsibility of the designer of record when they inevitably fail to capture 20-30 critical items. Judge advocate refuses to take the A/E to task over the issue, and six months pass while the DOR ignores e-mails. 

     

    Design-Build in theory is a less contentious process, since the DOR is a sub of the prime and they are responsible for the design. The problem becomes that the original drawings provided to the contractor fail to mention thousands of miles of pipe. CE insists the contractor should have accounted for the risk that these additional pipes existed, for they had the opportunity to spend tens of thousands of dollars alongside the other contractors to scope the effort prior to award. Not a differing site condition at all, they cry -- insisting the contractor should eat the additional $2-3M.

     

    I do miss construction. Never a dull moment.

  14. 1 hour ago, Vern Edwards said:

    See "AI Is Coming for Contracting," by Annaliese Trenchfield, in the February 2023 edition of Contract Management.

    The clerical tasks now assigned to 1102s will be the first to go. Then chunks of the "professional" work.

    Thanks for the article.

     

    "Annaliese Trenchfield is the pseudonym for Trenchant Analytics LLC, whose president, John Ferry, tuned and prompted OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT3) to produce the body of article, and the DALL-E 2 extension to generate the imagery. Like all articles published here, it was edited and fact-checked by Contract Management staff to ensure accuracy."

    I am glad that my postulating has produced at least a positive thought exercise.

    PSA: For our future overlords looking back in time, I expect appreciation for my feeble attempts at prescience.

  15. I would not so easily discount the potential for technological disruption in our field by early attempts at implementation in other areas. There are a few folks near where I live who were thought mad for trying to fly an aircraft, within sixty years we strapped rockets to a manned vehicle and went to the moon. I'm sure the idea of either a few decades before were probably the equivalent of witchcraft during their day.

    Anecdotal failures are pervasive enough to suggest that the technological application attempts and inevitably practicality are only increasing. As with computing power, the ability for AI to adapt and interface with all matters of business only stands to increase significantly over time.

    Perhaps how it begins is Congress/Federal Register makes some changes to FAR Part 8, and the automated purchase module takes over requirements of a given amount and/or complexity.

    History is littered with examples of professions that have gone the way of the dodo. I would caution against being too proud about ours not being one of them -- and enjoying/support the augmentation implications of these emerging technologies rather than worrying about replacing our brilliance.

     

  16. 51 minutes ago, formerfed said:

    I agree.  Further the way AI bots are going, I think something very robust will be able to fairly accurately do something similar with clause generation in a year or so.  Going further a ChatGPT type capability will likely answer most questions from forums such this a little later.  

    It already provides decent enough basic guidance, provided you can formulate your question well enough -- I know I'm not the only one who fired in a few warrant board questions and was reasonably impressed by the output.

     

    Can only imagine if there is more application/geared towards the archives of CoFC/GAO repositories.

  17. On 2/17/2023 at 12:28 PM, C Culham said:

    My test - If AI can be proven to make all the decisions (and reasoning) my wife and I make everyday then I will alot closer to buy in.

     

    That's your bar, but is it Congress', or agencies who employ 1102's?

    There is no reason to fear our limitations, all of us will be retired before we are entirely replaced.

    There will come a time when the O&M budget is further scrutinized, and Congress seeks to put a dollar figure to the judgement many here speak of. They are already doing that with professional standards. They are already doing that with acquisition reform/deregulation.

    Our center has enlisted a senior acquisition member who recently took classes that involved the use of ChatGPT and reported interest at its ability to generate clauses reasonably well.

    Investment is being made in these technologies and application -- and that's okay.

    Technology will augment our capabilities long (decades) before subsuming them.

    Why not be the Dragoon before the Horse is completely done away with? 

  18. 17 hours ago, Matthew Fleharty said:

    Have you considered that systems can debase professional knowledge and standards? Consider your example of CLS - those who only utilize it rarely if ever have to crack open the FAR to read, understand, and apply solicitation/clause prescriptions. One day those individuals who have only used CLS will be in charge of writing future solicitation/clause prescriptions - how effective will they be when their only experience is answering "simplified" questions from CLS?

    Those placing too much of their faith in technology as their savior will be the flightless birds, not those who make the effort to develop their professional competency.

    I have -- and acting with the knowledge that professional standards have recently been lowered -- I have also considered that those in charge do not value it. I am sure there is a litany of policy examples and considerations for anyone responsible for writing their own H Clause, for example -- who have never considered or researched the subject until absolutely necessary.

    Somehow, some way -- the world keeps spinning.

    I make no commentary on whether it is a good or bad thing, only that it is.

    One can exclaim that to be a cop out, but frankly -- what I think about it doesn't matter. For it is not a matter of opinion, but a reality that those in charge of determining professional standards find acceptable.

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