Jump to content

Don Mansfield

Members
  • Posts

    3,371
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Don Mansfield

  1. Consider the following exchange between two people: Obviously, Speaker 2's answer is not responsive to Speaker 1's question. Speaker 1 wanted to know about a particular aspect of Speaker 2's car: its origin. Speaker 2 described a different aspect of his car: its color. While Speaker 2's statement about the color of his car may be true, it doesn't tell us anything about the origin of his car. Easy enough, right? Ok, let's try another one. Consider the following exchange between two contract specialists: Is Contract Specialist 2's answer responsive to Contract Specialist 1's question? No, the answer is no more responsive to the question than Speaker 2's answer was to the question of whether his car was foreign or domestic. Why? In this exchange, Contract Specialist 1 wanted to know about a particular aspect of Contract X: ts compensation arrangement. Contract Specialist 2 described a different aspect of Contract X: its delivery arrangement. While Contract Specialist 2's statement about the delivery arrangement of Contract X may be true, it doesn't tell us anything about the compensation arrangement of Contract X. Make sense? If so, see if you can spot anything wrong with the following passage of an article on contract types that recently appeared in the December 2010 issue of Contract Management (see Government Contract Types: The U.S. Government?s Use of Different Contract Vehicles to Acquire Goods, Services, and Construction by Brian A. Darst and Mark K. Roberts): Do you see anything wrong? Notice that the first two "families" are categorized by compensation arrangement. However, the third family contains a mix of terms used to describe compensation arrangement (T&M/LH), delivery arrangement (indefinite delivery), the extent of contractor commitment (level-of-effort), and a unique term used to describe a contract that is not definitive (letter contract). The way this passage is written implies that an indefinite delivery contract, a level-of-effort contract, and a letter contract are necessarily different (belong to a different "family") from a fixed-price or cost reimbursement contract. However, an indefinite delivery contract or a level-of-effort contract will have a compensation arrangement. The compensation arrangement can be fixed-price, cost-reimbursement, T&M/LH, or some combination thereof. A letter contract may or may not have a compensation arrangement when it is issued. You could conceivably have a letter contract that had a cost-reimbursement compensation arrangement, an indefinite delivery arrangement, and that provided for level-of-effort orders. As such, the authors? categorization of contract types makes as much sense as categorizing cars into three families?foreign, domestic, and red. Incentive Contracts? Not What You Think They Are Consider the following simplified description of a compensation arrangement: Does the preceding describe an incentive contract? Many would say yes, because the arrangement provides for an incentive--specifically, a performance incentive. However, that would be incorrect. Just because a contract contains an incentive does not mean that it is an incentive contract. FAR 16.202-1 contains the following statements in a description of firm-fixed-price contracts (similar statements pertaining to fixed-price contracts with economic price adjustment can be found at FAR 16.203-1. [bold added]. Further, FAR 16.402-1(a) states: Thus, it's not enough for a contract to contain an incentive to be an incentive contract. It must contain a cost incentive (or constraint). In the aforementioned Contract Management article, an endnote references FAR 37.601(3) and misinterprets this paragraph as--encouraging the use of incentive-type contracts where appropriate. Here's what FAR 37.601(3) actually says: The authors have made the mistake of assuming that a contract that contained a performance incentive was necessarily an incentive contract. In fact, when acquiring services FAR 37.102(a)(2) states the following order of precedence: As shown above, a firm-fixed-price contract would take precedence over an incentive contract. A Genuine Misunderstanding In a discussion of additional contract types and agreements, the Contract Management article contained the following statement (which caused me to stop reading and start writing): Huh? T&M/LH is a type of indefinite delivery contract? I'll let you readers ponder that one. The article concludes with a plug for the authors-two-day course in, you guessed it, types of contracts. I will pass.
  2. More than that. It would provide us something like "contract award worthiness". It would give a "probability of successful performance" or something like that. More than just financial stability.
  3. Maybe don't use the term "contract type". Just say the contract will have a firm-fixed price compensation arrangement and an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity delivery arrangement.
  4. Read this: Then share it with your QA reviewer.
  5. I'm leaning toward this. I'd like to see what could be done with available data before imposing requirements for more.
  6. Technology exists in China that can evaluate the credit worthiness of a business in minutes. It considers thousands of variables using artificial intelligence. The default rate is about 1%. So, something like that for evaluating prospective Government contractors. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/jack-ma-s-290-billion-loan-machine-is-changing-chinese-banking-1564315968589.html
  7. I don't understand this. Are you saying the requirement for the prescribed source selection records that applies to tradeoffs is the cause of essay-writing contests?
  8. I found the following in the Contract Pricing Reference Guide (Volume 2, 4.5): This implies that you can either use a CER or make a discrete estimate (not both). This makes me think the question on the checklist is poorly worded. I think "other than discrete" means that you used a CER.
  9. Or you could sidestep the responsibility issue, and potential CoC complications, by requiring the certification as part of the offer. https://www.gao.gov/products/b-419893.8%2Cb-419893.9
  10. No. Just the costs that are the basis of your proposed price. This would apply if you had started work under an undefinitized contract action, for example.
  11. "DoD Fosters Innovation by Mandating Use of Standard Source Selection Procedures" The procedures seem to limit the discussion of the highest technically rated offer (HTRO) with fair and reasonable price to multiple-award IDIQ contracts. Why? Nothing in the Sevatec decision limited the GAO's opinion to multiple-award IDIQ contracts.
  12. See Chapter 4 of Formation of Government Contracts, Fourth Edition, pp. 428-434.
  13. Another reference: Volume 4, Chapter 9 of the Contract Pricing Reference Guides.
  14. A few more questions about this case: The Court said that the cost principles "applied" to the contract. What does that mean? FAR 31.000 states: Are they saying it applied to the pricing of the contract? Or the determination, negotiation, or allowance of costs? Or both? If it's the latter, what contract clause required the use of the cost principles? It seems like they are saying that because the cost principles applied to the pricing of the contract, they apply to determining allowance of costs under the contract. However, they don't mention what contract clause would require this. Perhaps they thought FAR 31.205-47 was a contract clause?
  15. This is surprising. I don't agree with the following: What does "price is reached" mean? Under a firm-fixed-price level-of-effort contract, the Government agrees to pay a fixed dollar amount for the contractor to provide a specified level of effort over a stated period of time. Unlike a cost-reimbursement contract, payment is not dependent on the the contractor's costs. The Court proceeds from the flawed assumption that payment under a FFP LOE contract is the same as a cost-reimbursement contract. The Government should be able to win this if they appeal.
  16. I think you complied with FAR 5.101(a). I don't know of a requirement to republicize if your quotes come in greater than you expected (and greater than $25k).
  17. https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2022cv0364-41-0
  18. The Government can modify contracts without consideration, too. It's just not something a contracting officer can typically do without getting higher level approval.
  19. One risk is that inaction by the Government could be interpreted as a waiver of the delivery schedule. In that case, the Government would likely lose its right to terminate for default.
  20. I don't think that would be a deviation. The FAR permits the use of options in construction.
×
×
  • Create New...