The Missile Defense Agency came up with a somewhat unique way to acquire technologies in a more rapid manner including using non-traditional contractors. They issued a Multiple Authority Announcement (MAA) for solutions coving eight critical technical domains. A variety of procurement methods are possible besides traditional FAR based contracts including Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO), Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), Procurement for Experimental Purpose, (PEP) and Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).

SAM notice

One interesting part, at least to me, is offerors can propose the award method.

“Individual solicitations will ask the offeror to recommend the best instrument type to allow for the best solution. MDA reserves the right to select and award the instrument type best suited for the nature of work proposed. MDA anticipates using a mix of FAR and non-FAR instrument types to include, but not limited to:

 Procurement Contract

 Other Transaction (OT) Agreement

 Procurement for Experimental Purposes (PEP) Agreement

 Technology Investment Agreement (TIA)

 Grant or Cooperative Agreement

 Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)”

Edit: By posting this I hoped to see some discussion. I’m thinking is this something that should be widely used? Can it be expanded not only across DoD but to the rest of government? It seems to me it focuses on achieving mission first rather than satisfying bureaucratic objectives.

18 hours ago, formerfed said:

I’m thinking is this something that should be widely used?

DoD centric or would civilian agencies have the ability to use some of the same or similiar authorities?

Yet my overall thought when I first saw the post and did a quick review of the document I wondered about industry outreach pre-notice. Maybe my view is too simplistic as at first blush the document represents a big ask that then says just wait for the individual solictiations. Then I wondered as I thought harder is this just one further twist to accomplish the "competition" requirement so no further notices need to be posted as afterall it is posted as a "Combined Synopsis/Solicitation (Original)"? In my simplisitic view I settled on thinking this was just an easy way out for trying to engage industry in a very large endeavor. Saying so because once again in the simple view isn't (or shouldn't) every need be negotiated with industry to find the agreement/contract that provides to best solution to have industry accomplish the mission. It just seems that this approach is out of sinc with project planning. strategies as I would think the government would settle on the best approach to accomplish a need and then move forward with it. Or maybe as exemplified by the approach the government already has and is using the approach to shortcut industry outreach? I am not settled that the approach is a new wize bang to mission accomplishment.

18 hours ago, formerfed said:

One interesting part, at least to me, is offerors can propose the award method.

12 minutes ago, C Culham said:

It just seems that this approach is out of sinc with project planning. strategies as I would think the government would settle on the best approach to accomplish a need and then move forward with it.

I'm intrigued by the Multiple Authority Announcement and would be interested to see how it plays out. The cynic in me assumes there's some type of gerrymandering a result occurring. The optimist in me wonders what interesting doors will be opened by offeror proposed award methods.

2 hours ago, C Culham said:

DoD centric or would civilian agencies have the ability to use some of the same or similiar authorities?

I thought about this. I think any agency with at least some of these authorities could use this. For example, NASA, Energy, HHS, DHS, and DOT are permitted to use Other Transaction Authority. I think they also can do grants, cooperative agreements, and probably CRADA.

Since a goal is having non-traditional companies involved, I agree outreach to industry is a concern.

I wonder how an offeror's proposal would differ using one authority vs. another. Would they have different proposals for different authorities (i.e., OTA price, FAR-based contract price, etc.)? That would interesting to measure.