Vern Edwards

See "School Is for Wasting Time and Money," by Prof. Bryan Caplan, George Mason University, in The New York Times, Guest Essay, Sept. 1, 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opinion/us-school-knowledge.html A taste:

See page 33. The PIL created a podcast entitled, "A Brief Explanation of Brief Explanations: Policy and Practice in Action." The podcast was an explanation of FAR 8.405-3(d), "If an unsuccessful offeror requests information on an award that was based on factors other than price alone, a brief explanation of the basis for the award decision shall be provided." See also FAR 13.106-3(d). What does it say about the state of a college-educated workforce (and DHS "culture") when the PIL felt the need to create an hour-long podcast (a silly one) to explain "brief explanation"? What does it say about American college education?

Maybe you can't define "objective truth" because there is no such thing. Maybe there is no such thing as objectivity.

What's your definition of "objective truth"? Your definition. Not a quote from someone else.

Yes. I don't know of any "piece of technology" that could do routine contracting administrative tasks. Just hire high school grads. No, I'm not thinking of them as "feeders" into the 1102 series, although some might become so. I'm not sure whether there would be a shortage of such folks, but it sure would help solve the student loan crisis if we stopped requiring college degrees for simple work such as issuing purchase orders and delivery orders for small and routine buys. I'm leaving on a long road trip in about an hour and won't be back for a week or so. Have fun with the thread. Vern

Why do you want technology? Just bring back a workforce position that used to do administrative work: procurement clerk and procurement technician, GS-1106, and hire and train high school grads to do that work. The position description needs updating and the duties should be expanded, but here is how the PD currently describes them as they were in 1992: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/classifying-general-schedule-positions/standards/1100/gs1106.pdf The work includes - preparing, verifying, abstracting, controlling, or closing out procurement documents, files, reports, or records; - updating and maintaining the currency of procurement documents or related information; - sorting, compiling, typing, and distributing requisitions, contracts, orders, modifications, etc.; - tracking the status of requisitions, contracts, and orders using automated or manual files and through contacts with vendors, supply technicians, inventory managers, engineers, etc.; - attending bid openings and abstracting bid information; - maintaining bidder mailing lists by adding or deleting vendor information in the system; - assembling contract file information and entering purchase order or contract data into a management information system; - reviewing reports and researching errors or conflicting information in procurement documentation; - assembling and preparing procurement management reports by gathering and consolidating pertinent information; - monitoring contractor performance and recommending modifications to the contract; - investigating customer or vendor complaints of errors in shipment, payment, and/or contract documentation; - developing manual and/or assisting in the development of automated procurement procedures; and - reviewing purchase order or contract files for inclusion of specific documents or clauses as defined in procedures.

Is it costing your company money?

With what explanation? There can be legal consequences for the government if the the CO unduly delays issuance of a notice to proceed. That having been said, the PM and the CO should plan the timing of an NTP before the solicitation is released.

Wouldn't it be nice if FAR were consistent? FAR 15.304, Evaluation factors for award, says that the following four factors must be evaluated, as prescribed: price or cost to the government, quality of the product or service (including management capability, personnel qualifications, technical excellence, and experience), past performance, and proposed small business subcontracting. But FAR 15.305, Proposal evaluation, lists the following four categories of proposal evaluations: cost or price, past performance, technical (mentioning assessment of each offeror's ability to accomplish the technical requirements, but not mentioning the quality of the proposed product or service), and small business subcontracting. Why don't those sections match up? They were written at the same time. Given the way 15.304 is written, why doesn't FAR 15.305 say "quality evaluation?" instead of "technical evaluation"? Is seems to me that regulations should be written so as to make the rules clear even to novices and to citizens seeking to compete for contracts.

That would be consistent with the use prescribed by the revised DOD Source Selection Procedures.

@Busymom44You are a contracting officer?

Extend the scope of what? The contract or an order under the contract? See FAR 15.000, Scope of part: Now see the definition of "contract" in FAR 2.101.

We still see references to "technical evaluations" and "technical factors" applied to proposals with non-technical content. In fact, such references are very common. And see the newly-revised DOD source selection procedures, page C-4: So factors like key personnel qualifications are "technical."

You might want to think about that again. Begin with this: What does "guarantee" mean? Is a guarantee anything other than a promise? If a guarantee is a promise, and if by proposal you mean offer, then why can proposals never guarantee success? Look up guarantee in Black's Law Dictionary, 11th ed., and then in Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage, 3d ed. And what do you mean by "Proposals demonstrate. That is all they do."?

A discrete cost estimate is an engineering estimate of a specific cost, like materials or labor. Such discrete estimates are assembled into a total cost estimate. An "other than discrete cost estimate" would be a parametric estimate, which is obtained from an equation based on a cost estimating relationship (CER), in which some cost is a function of some independent independent variable like weight or size. If the estimate is based on a CER, the offeror should identify the independent variable, the cost function, and the derivation of the function. At least, that's what I think it means.

An excerpt from "How to Do Everything" in today's (Aug 29, 2022) New York Times: The Art of Learning to Do Things By Malia Wollan Now all you have to do is find someone who already knows how and knows the right way.

I have always found the word technical, as used in the FAR System and in government solicitations, to be vague. What, exactly, constitutes "technical"? The word appears in the FAR itself 525 times. It appears in the DFARS 792 times. Neither regulation defines the word. See, for example, DFARS 252,227-7013, Rights in Technical Data—Noncommercial Items (FEB 2014), paragraph (a)(15), describes "technical data" as follows: What does "technical" mean? What distinguishes "technical data" from other kinds of data? What kind of information is of a "technical" nature? (The DFARS definition makes the classic mistake of using one of the words to be defined, technical, in the definition of the term.) As contracts people, we should be especially concerned about the words we use and the words we are required to use. For a fascinating case about the meaning of "technical" and a good read, see Raytheon Company v. United States, 160 Fed. Cl. 428, June 30, 2022. https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2019cv0883-126-0 The Army and Raytheon got into a dispute about whether a vendor list constituted "technical data." The Army said yes; Raytheon said no. The parties argued vigorously. The judge resorted to the Oxford English Dictionary in her effort to determine what "technical" means. A classic case of contract interpretation. A must-read for all contracting officers, would-be contracting officers, contractors, and would-be contractors. The decision includes a great bonus: What does "incorporation by reference" mean and how should it be done?

It appears that the bottom line is that there are many ways to make a solicitation readily navigable and user friendly, whether paper or digital, and that COs ought to do so.

BTW, the so-called "performance work statement" in the solicitation for commercial services that I mentioned in my opening post includes a section entitled, "Applicable Publications (Current Editions)," which begins as follows: "The Contractor must abide by all applicable regulations, publications, manuals, and local policies and procedures." ("abide by"? Somebody should have consulted a dictionary.) It then lists 46 government publications. There are no indications of tailoring. (So much for commercial services.) The very first item on the list is an 88-page Army doctrine publication. It is available in E-reader and pdf. It has a table of contents.

I don't understand your question. The FAR at acquisition.gov is a 1,992-page digital document. It has several tables of contents that are linked to the coverage. When the FAR is downloaded as a pdf, it also has a table of contents linked to the coverage. You could do that for a solicitation and contract, with the TOC linked to headings. There is all kinds of guidance on the internet about developing TOCs for digital documents. Why should you provide a table of contents for a digital document? For the same reason you would for a paper document. A TOC tells you what is in a document and where to find it. It makes a large document more accessible and saves time. I use CTRL+F to search for particular words or phrases. I'll you what I think is unprofessional. It is issuing a lengthy, complicated public document, on paper or digital, without a table of contents, and telling companies that they have to meet a deadline for submitting a response or be eliminated from consideration.

Even if a solicitation/contract is written in the UCF, you should have a table of contents more detailed than the one on SF33 for a long document. See, e.g., MIL-HDBK-245E, Preparation of Statement of Work"

But the RFPs at sam.gov are downloadable paper copies. Why no TOC?

An agency head or HCA cannot ratify an unauthorized commitment that was made in violation of a statute or a regulation with the force and effect of law.

I read a lot of RFPs, and I have noticed something that seems strange and is very aggravating. Most agencies issue RFPs of 100 pages or more without tables of contents. The table of contents on Standard Form 33 is inadequate for such documents, and other solicitation forms do not include even that. I just read a 145-page Army RFP for commercial cyber services that is not written in the Uniform Contract Format and has no table of contents. The PWS in the RFP is 58 pages long and it has no table of contents. In order to know what is in the RFP and where it is you must go through it page-by-page. It is very unprofessional, but it is very common. What is up with that? And why not include a brief (one-page) executive summary describing the acquisition?

I suppose I should add that if the contract is found to have been entered into in violation of a statute or a regulation with the force and effect of law it could be declared "void ab initio." See Cibinic et al., Formation of Government Contracts, 4th ed., pp. 72 - 75.