WifWaf

That’s because this type of thing is just a bolt-on requirement. Regardless of how, I think we can agree review boards began recently, in response to bad decision(s). A check and balance, rather, would have been designed into the system. Like the Executive Branch’s veto power over Congress, a good check and balance pits competing powers against each other for the betterment of the decision. Veto is efficient, too - there’s no chain of command involved. The one place the FAR does a good job of this is the competition advocate role in Part 6. The statute designed parties with competing interests. You work hard for your interests to win over the other party’s interests, just like an attorney would in a court case. You’re not beholden to the competition advocate, you’re beholden to sound reasoning. That’s what a good reformation appealing to “common sense” should accomplish. OSDBU’s influence on the market research decision is another example of this, albeit not for a unanimously noble cause (socioeconomic concerns).

If you think this matters to the discussion, then you’d best stay out of it, and let the adults talk. I’m sorry, but I’m just so tired of childishness in media - it seems like all of social media and all the news outlets are written by emotionally unhealthy, immature kids. All the stateliest journalists of the past have been out-clicked because they’re competing with knee jerk comments like the one quoted above. As a result, critical thinking can’t thrive anywhere on the internet, except on small unknown websites like this one - if, that is, we hold each other accountable.

There was a COFC case involving CAS that led to review boards being instituted. It was rightly needed, given the current state of professional development and the facts I recall of the blatantly poor decision the ACO made. It didn’t involve any forward pricing, though, from what I recall. The broader problem statement here is in this: Experience tells us almost every government project that gives people power, like a review board, will expand beyond its original basis for establishment. So… Provide what you recommend doing about it. Please rate this problem on 1 - 7 scale. How did the checks and balances written into the Constitution solve this kind of problem efficiently?

Folks, if you can’t describe a problem briefly, then you haven’t critically thought it through yet.

I meant they are fixed-price commercial. Edited it above. Thanks, Joel. Are you recalling a time when the engines were government-developed?

@KOiFish What is your idea?

From the October 2012 Contract Management magazine article, "9 Recommendations to Improve Federal Government Purchasing and Supply Chain Management": "The U.S. federal government purchases more than $500 billion of goods and services each year, buying everything from pens and paper to engineering services and fighter jets. However, most experts agree that the government purchasing process is cumbersome and inefficient; hundreds of purchasing offices work independently with little or no coordination." There's your problem statement. Then come Mr. Sharma's recommendations: Recommendation 1: Re-envision the role of government purchasing from managing purchases and price to managing supply chains and total cost Recommendation 2: Appoint a Chief Federal Supply Chain Officer to lead a new Office of Federal Supply Chain Managment Recommendation 3: Strengthen the role of departmental headquarters and redefine the role of departmental chief procurement officers Recommendation 4: Strengthen strategic sourcing and centralize management of common categories Recommendation 5: Establish supplier performance and relationship management programs Recommendation 6: Implement TechStat-style reviews of Major Acquisition Programs Recommendation 7: Restructure the workforce and transform the culture Recommendation 8: Streamline the FAR and procurement process Recommendation 9: Leverage technology to improve transparency, maximize competition, and drive down cost Go read the article if you have a copy. Much of the commercial products and services we buy could use these attributes of commoditizing Supply Chain Management, as compared to labor-intensive Contract Management. If you have any experience working with a prime contractor that has many aircraft engine part suppliers, you may recognize that adoption of this would be alignment to industry best practices. You know those practices must be good because those engine manufacturers’ revenues are mostly fixed-price commercial, and so they have all the risk - therefore they do things efficiently. And if you have any experience working at DCMA you know the government's labor-intensive, PO-by-PO contract management is not efficient. That's because government has all the risk but just increases the budget when it realizes risk.

I know this essayist Raj Sharma from his contribution to the October 2012 volume of Contract Management magazine, in which he made a good case for Supply Chain Management replacing Contract Management in the case of commercial purchase orders and other low-complexity buys. CM magazine is behind a paywall, but I Googled him and found some of his work from that same timeframe. This report of his says the Federal Government can save between $25 billion and $54 billion a year by changing the way it buys goods and services, as follows: Estimate demand—know how much you need. So-called accurate-needs estimates help set budgets, predict required operational capacity, and provide suppliers accurate demand information that can improve government’s ability to negotiate better pricing. Plan better, use less—separate what you need from what you want. The easiest way to reduce costs is often simply to consume less. That starts by tying every purchase requirement to an identified need, not merely a desire. Buy commercial—buy what people are already selling. It’s almost always less expensive and less risky to buy an “off the shelf ” product than to commission a customized version. But it requires extensive research and discipline to stick to what the market offers. Source strategically—coordinate and consolidate your purchases. Instead of purchasing something whenever a need arises, “strategic sourcing” means coordinating across offices and taking a step back to determine the best way to purchase a good or service on an ongoing basis. Maximize competition—make it easy for vendors to save you money. Competition lowers costs, promotes innovation, and improves performance, so procurement officers should always strive to structure orders that attract multiple serious bidders. Negotiate intelligently—know everything about your bidders. Smart buyers understand every aspect of cost for a product or service and arrive at the negotiation table armed with extensive knowledge of the bidders. Simplify and automate—keep it simple, stupid. Procurement officials should eliminate bureaucratic hurdles that deter competition and they should automate processes wherever possible. Manage supplier relationships—get what you paid for. The buzz phrase “supplier relationship management” refers to a conscious effort at proactively managing supplier performance and relationships across an organization. This improves management of suppliers across multiple contracts and gives buyers better insight into vendor operations. Manage costs jointly—lower your supplier’s costs to lower your own. Working with suppliers to increase efficiencies and remove waste across the entire supply chain can ultimately reduce costs for government. Manage internal and contract compliance—show me the money. When agencies don’t ensure cost-saving strategies are being used and suppliers are complying with contract terms, predicted savings can “leak” out. Compliance management requires an unrelenting focus on implementation to ensure “identified” savings become “real.” These are many one-sentence ideas, each totaling up to a 7 on your scale. Maybe you can submit them all one by one. The report is within a link here, for your perusal: A $400 Billion Opportunity - Center for American Progress

How about a reform where new journeymen and under get a prescriptive FAR, and upper journeymen and above get a permissive FAR? How about a government contracts education (not FAI training) curriculum is established as the gateway from new to upper journeymen, and the position classification is set to a professional standard allotting 20% of each tour of duty to research? That’s a whole day each week of reading contract formation, administration, and legal concepts in books, periodicals, and case law.

Do your web crawlers look for repetition of citations, like Google does, OPM?

Are your AI tools listening, OPM?

The cause of this problem is clear to me. Due to a faulty hiring standard, we are not able to properly perform research in our jobs. In the 1102 Position Classification Standard from the 1980's, there was a comment and response that doomed the field from the start. It is shown in the quote box below. The result is, currently, young bucks like Bender up above are technically correct to whip the career field, and say, "Get to work making crappy RFQs!" - because the OPM standard says we are not paid to research as professionals do to improve. Bender, who for our purposes I will assume is a new hire, is desirous of a workforce that is all application, no research. The masters here, though, are currently those who 1) Were educated in-person on research books like Formation of Government Contracts, 2) Are fully capable of researching concepts in books like Administration of Government Contracts on their own, and 3) Otherwise research N&CR and case law during lunch and after work. But 1) is nonexistent in the career field, and 2) and 3) are unpaid research that is simply not scalable. How can we, in this opportune time of change, demand correction of this standard's interpretation of the law? PP. 130-132. Emphasis added.

Thanks for doing this, gentlemen! Your podcast format is exactly what busy people need. After listening to this one, I have a question: For lack of a Proposed Rule public comment period, can WIFCON.com Forum serve to post topics and allow comment on each significant deviation to FAR?

It’s definitely a doable task for an experienced procurement analyst. STEP 1: Go to ecfr.gov, click Title 48, and find “shall” number 1 of 8,579, starting at FAR Part 1. STEP 2: Click the Federal Register link at the bottom of the imperative statement’s Subpart, Section, or Subsection to locate the promulgating Final Rule. STEP 3: find “Authority” or “Act” on that FR volume’s pages to locate the statute(s) being promulgated. STEP 4: Click the statute(s), and find all the “shall” words therein. STEP 5: Compare the plain language of the statute(s) to that of the Code of Federal Regulation that resulted, and decide what must change to decrease any non-statutory imperative burden, bearing in mind all regulatory and legislative history. This is the mysterious part, requiring judgment. The rest is just a puzzle to be solved. Most of this is legwork requiring little judgment till the final decision. A team of 10 experienced procurement analysts can do Steps 1-4, and four GS-15 analysts can do Step 5 from there. The 15’s can submit their toughest decisions to two SES deciders.

I have two hopes for the reform. I foresee it changing for the better if: Each non-statutory “shall” becomes a “should”, and plain language is added to identify when the “should” becomes obligatory; and DOGE produces a method of governmentwide communication demonstrating each Office’s success or failure A) Meeting statutory requirements, and B) Negotiating prices and terms and conditions strategically. Do you agree that many of the FAR’s imperative statements can be converted to suggestive obligations with clearly stated predications for when the suggestion becomes operative? Do you agree this government can increase stewardship accountability to the Taxpayer through new technology?