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Boof

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Everything posted by Boof

  1. Don, They said the contractor provided a first item for testing. So, isn't that legally an acceptance of the order. However,if the order depended on first order acceptance and there was none, that really complicates the issue.
  2. Sure, a real TO is much better than a fake task order that companies can just cheat on because they know they won't have to fulfill.
  3. Don, You are correct but doing the market research and documenting the file with enough information to survive a protest will add a lot of additional time to every order. So it affects us greatly in time and effort. In addition, the pressure will be on to maximize use of SB to get our numbers back up so I fear that the numbers will take precedence over common sense.
  4. It is becoming apparent that all overseas dollars are going to get counted in the SBA goals for FY16. For my agency that will cause a 19% drop in overall small business percentage and while we met 4 of the 5 subgoals (8a, SDVOB, etc) last year, we won't be meeting any next year barring a minor miracle. DoD thinks they will drop a couple of percentage points but 2% is Billions of dollars for them. We are having to start a massive information and training program for all our acquistion personnel overseas who have never been trained on Part 19 before. Of course there is no resources for that. By the way, protests have alreay been filed by U.S. SB firms wanting us to procure all orders under $150K from the U.S. instead of from our normal local foreign firms because small business set aside is mandated under the SAT. So it would seem most of our requirements will have to be ordered from U.S. Small buisness and shipped around the world at higher cost. This will likely cause us to add to our shipping offices and customs clearance personnel. Service contract overhead will be terrible due to U.S. firms having to deploy overseas vs our hiring the guy down the street. The contract file can be fully justified if there is a good reason (cost, delivery time, etc) to buy locally but it will cause our contract specialists overseas a lot of extra work in added market research and documentation. A lot of extra work we never had to do before without getting any more resources to do it. We are in for a rough couple of years due to this interpretation change by SBA. I guess we will reach a new equilibrium eventually.
  5. Vern, I am looking at our big picture not just one particular action. Our 265 posts and our one regional procurment office overseas buy a lot in country. If the products have orginally come from the U.S. then do they have to set it aside and wait for some U.S. company to ship it halfway around the world. This is plain silly but that is what is at issue here. Retreadfed, That is the issue SBA is facing right now. There has been an overseas exemption and SBA says the law does not allow that exemption. So if they eliminate it we expect the Government Wide percentage which was recently attained for the first time in history will drop to about 18 or 19 percent. It takes billions to raise it one percent so I guess Government Wide we will be in violation of the law for some time to come. My agency thinks we can squeak out 23% but not be able to help DoD and others pull up the Government wide number. . .
  6. Don, I wanted to see what the consensus was on the concept of an overseas office buying a U.S. product in general. Good point on a brand name not being able to be set aside. . The particular procurement that brought tis up is for a brand name and is for vehicles so the order should be placed through GSA Auto Choice if we are to use an American source anyway. We are pretty sure there are some souces in country and nearby region with the vehicles on thier dealer lots since they are used extensively by various Governments and Private corporations. So, lots of issues on this one.
  7. Please note that my agency has a policy that we should maximize small business in our overseas procurments but no particular guidelines as to how we achieve that. The Small Business office tries to enforce it on our Washington Acqusitons Office when buying for shipment overseas. However, the complaint from a US small business had everyone rethinking since the product is manufactured and shipped from the US. So must the item be set aside when the product is also available in Dubai? Tough question based on the discussion here by my esteemed collegues. By the way, I have been to a couple of meetings at the SBA and they are strongly in favor of counting all funds spent worldwide in calculating small business percentages. All agencies at the meetings stated they could if they wanted to do it but don't expect us to meet any goals as currently negotiated and don't expect the Government to meet the Congressionally mandated 23% any time in the future. SBA says the mandate never eliminated overseas actions and we have been doing it wrong all these years. DoD made the best case against changing but SBA seemed set on marching ahead with the change. Our current 43% will proabably based on our analysis drop to about 20%. We might make 23% but not be able to help others make up thier shortfalls. We shall see.
  8. FPDS states in their user manual that the place of performance for a supply is where it is manufactured, or where is is shipped from stock. So if we buy an IT item from CDWG in the Washington area but the product ships from a warehouse in Nebraska, then we should be putting Nebraska as the place of performance. I know the FPDS user guide is not the holy grail but it is what we are being told to put on the FPDS report which is reported to the world.
  9. Thanks Don, This will help greatly. I never thought about a GAO angle.
  10. All, FAR Part 19.000 (b)states: "This part, except for subpart 19.6 applies only in the United States and its outlying areas. FAR 19.6 applies worldwide." The requirement was posted for any company worldwide to bid on it but our small business office says it must be set aside after getting a complaint from a small business in the U.S. It is over the SAT and under $1M. So if the contracting office is overseas and they need to buy a U.S. made product (available at dealers in Europe too) do they have to set the requirement aside? We have never interpreted that we must set aside actions just because the product is available in the U.S. If set aside it drives up shipping cost/time because it eliminates the foreign dealer down the street that we expect to bid on it. I have no issue with letting US small business compete if they can, but I don't want to eliminate local foreign vendors from the competition. What are your opinions?
  11. FAR clause 52.222-41 should be in the contract if SCA work is being performed. It includes the adjustment of fringe benefits such as H&W. Read it thoughly from start to finish and its Part 22 prescription. It allows a company to request an adjustment, it does not constitute one.
  12. If the prime contractor is a small business then they will have to be wary of the limitations on subcontracting clauses when trying to satisfy the Government. Not sure why the technical team thinks that managing a separate prime contract is more work than managing the same work via a different prime.
  13. Price is irrevalent on large, complicated multiple award IDIQ service contracts. The price is determined in the task order competitions. Yet due to the FAR, we waste time setting up elaborate pricing schemes to be evaluated that everyone knows don't mean anything. And then we get protested on the meaningless price evaluation. (not meaningless to a losing offeror) Duh!
  14. Our office QA plan requires an informal plan for acquisitions above $150K that are not under FAR 13.5 and below $5M approved by a Division Chief. For acquisitions over $5M our agency supplement to FAR Part 7 requires a formal plan and our QA plan requires it be reviewed by branch, division, legal, Small business office and approved by the HCA. Comp advocate gets it too if it is going to require a J&A. However, due to our rediculous workload, the informal plans are rarely done and the formal ones are rushed through the process at the last minute, sometimes after the solicitation is already issued (defeating the whole purpose of the document) just so it is on file IAW our agency supplement. Services over $25M have to be approved by an Assistant Secretary.
  15. Mary Sue, First you must comply with the OASIS ordering guide: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/mediaId/201815/fileName/OASIS_SB_Ordering_Guide_v2_December_4_2014.action . Beyond that you can set it up almost anyway you want and Vern Offers a good short method in post #8. He can explain to you what he means by views. I don't want to steal his fun.
  16. I need to agree with aordway that the FAR should be more clear and better guidance provided to the field. I have complained about this since I was a newby. We now have an even less experienced staff. Some less then 5 years from college but many are direct hires from industry that come with a high pay grade and no Government experience. They struggle with the FAR and its conflicting guidance that requires constant debate on this website. .
  17. I think the CO should have caught the pricing error more so than the technical panel. If the change in cost was lower than the next lowest bid, I am sure my agency would modify the order and get on with business. I know we have done so before for various reasons.
  18. I think any pricing information database being used to inform COs for future negotiations must be maintained without company names related to the prices. It would just be a scatter graphs of prices paid (by quantitiy breaks) with various averages given. The database should be public in my view too. Contractors should be able to see what prices we have been paying as much as the COs. Transparency you know. I will say that this data has limited value due to our not knowing all the terms and conditions or other unusual factors. However it would eliminate some rediculously high outliers as I have seen in some of my own agencies strategic sourcing price graphs. Works good for simple supplies, equipment and commodities but not sure how it can be very useful in service contracts. Problem is that to get that pricing information, someone has to provide it in the format needed. This takes manpower that we don't have in the short term even if the computers do 80% of the work.
  19. The difference between a grant and a contract is by who benefits from it. If the prime/Government benefit from the work then it is a contract. If the public or some other country benefits from th work being done, it is a grant. There are differing procedures but both requrire we get what we pay for and both require oversight and audits. In the past there has been a lot of lax oversight in grants that gave appearance of a give away and that is one reason for the complete rewrite of Government Grant Policies. I don't know about other agencies but our OIG has finally woke up and realized the Government has more money in grants than in Contracts so they are starting to look closer at them. I think the "easy money" days are waning.
  20. I think the idea of the 360s is to try and improve relations between the program office, Contracting and the contractor by giving each feedback on what they could do better. However like all evaluation type surveys, most personnel are not going to be honest so as to not rat on the others. A few like to rat on the others and will make things sound worse than ever. The whole thing will never be effective and is a waste of everyones time. If you believe in 360 surveys, like OFPP does then this sounds great. They are not the only ones praising 360s. For a realist like me, it will create more animosity than it solves. There is a natural tension between the three parties and there should be to a certain extent. Thats why I have clients and not customers.
  21. More info is needed on what and how is being procured now and how they want to back it up.
  22. Thanks to all the replies on the sexual Harrassment issue. I think we can close that discussion now. As of the discussion of the clauses that spun off of it. Sounds like the real issue is at what point does some guidance to the contractor become a "clause/provision" and require a FAR deviation to use it. Our section H usually has added travel restrictions, how to get badges, industrial secuity information, removal of contract employees for violating rules, Added guidance on requirement to use SPOT in certtain countries, Other information about hazardous conditions in certain countries, requirement for needing Medivac coverage, etc. We have never thought of any of this as being a true clause although everyone calls every paragraph a "clause" unofficially.
  23. Thanks everyone. The clause debate was interesting. I don't think anyone at our agency has really thought much about our local "clauses" that usually go in section H or as provisions in sections L and M. Whenever the use of certain contract language becomes used by a lot of COs, we add it to our contract writing system for use by everyone. We consider them added information or instructions for the contractors. The provisions usually standardize RFP language based on legal guidance on how to best avoid protests. They do not contradict other FAR or Agency clauses. We have always called them Provisions and clauses but perhaps they are just prewritten guidance for the contractors. As for the Harassment training, we are all in agreement on not requiring it for contractors but have to finesse a way to tell our Office of the Secretary that thier idea isn't a good one.
  24. I agree we should stay out of it and right now only only one office is requesting something be done but that office is high up the chain. So I am putting together the reasons we should not perform training ourselves or force it on the contractor since Federal Law already requires they comply with EEO statutes. We shall see if we can avoid it or not. It is stuff like this that frustrates the contact specialists and causes more work for everyone than required by law.
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