WifWaf

Found a related RFI: https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/18575cee90e74b11bbe963d7750408d8/view Here you go, 1102s, have at it:

In honor of the late Bob Antonio, founder of WIFCON and its former moderator, I am posting the following updates to the Procurement List made by the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled. I suspect Bob had a heart for these individuals. Federal RegisterProcurement List; Additions and DeletionsThis action adds service(s) to the Procurement List that will be furnished by nonprofit agencies employing persons who are blind or have other severe disabilities.Federal RegisterProcurement List; Proposed Additions and DeletionsThe Committee is proposing to add products) to the Procurement List that will be furnished by nonprofit agencies employing persons who are blind or have other severe disabilities, and delete product(sFederal RegisterProcurement List; ChangeThis action changes service additions to the Procurement List that are furnished by nonprofit agencies employing persons who are blind or have other severe disabilities.For further information, search the RFO or the current FAR, Part 8, for "Procurement List". Bob must have caught every one of these notices on the Federal Register. He would always put them on the front page.

In many markets, the government cannot obtain robust market research from outside. Even when it does obtain it from outside the market, its result is program people describing requirements with which they have little recent experience. When requirements writers do not have great experience doing the work, they ask for approaches and understandings, so that they can make their evaluation decisions more binary (strength or weakness). If you must gain research by actually entering the market, you might try this newly described FAR Part 15 source selection approach.

Would anyone like to challenge me on this? Allow me to show my work. I am looking to sharpen it up. We know a cost is allowable only when the cost complies with all of the following requirements: (1) Reasonableness. (2) Allocability. (3) Standards promulgated by the CAS Board, if applicable, otherwise, generally accepted accounting principles and practices appropriate to the circumstances. (4) Terms of the contract. (5) Any limitations set forth in FAR Subpart 31.2. We know the negotiation of a contract type and a price are related and should be considered together with the issues of risk and uncertainty to the contractor and the Government. FAR 15.405(b). At time of award, then, these five factors determining allowability plus all issues of risk and uncertainty known to be possible (by at least one party) produce a price. The "something for something" nature of a quid pro quo exchange that occurs, therefore, is only sustained so long as both parties' "somethings" do not substantially change in any of the five points. Likewise, so long as they do not change in any risk not inherently assumed by contract type. When one changes substantially, the affected party may be equitably adjusted with a new price, or else the price may no longer be fair and reasonable. Think of the example of a cost accounting change. Here allocability has changed, therefore the government explores the magnitude of it and makes a materiality determination and seeks recovery of a cost impact. That’s also FAR 52.230-6 terms of the contract.

Price = an estimate of allowable costs + a construct of risks justifying profit. Price is a package presented quid pro quo by an offeror in exchange for an award.

To that I will. Because: From practice alone, my working definition of price flows mainly from the “meeting of the minds” necessary element of a contract in contract law. This is why in my noncommercial contracts I seek incorporation of offer elements to the maximum extent practicable. In addition, I dissuade COs from making a PCO-to-ACO handoff, as the foreknowledge and any verbal agreements are lost in transition. Can we keep it practical like this?

Can you expand on this statement?

That’s disingenuous to the discussion. We were talking about holding a human decision maker to his promises, not holding an atom to its law. We are on matters of the mind, not matter in physics.

I contend that the majority of contracts that are firm-fixed-price at a lump sum unit of measure today could move to fixed unit-rate and we would see immediate savings and improvements in quality. But it’s not described or instructed enough in the FAR and not trained outside of construction, so it doesn’t come up in acquisition planning.

The evaluators are human beings and we humans have always had a saying: "My word is my bond." The evaluators misinterpret the written word as a bond - an offer/promise. Talk about your ancient concepts. Oaths are sacred. Yes*, but that didn't stop all of humanity from entering into contracts. And you know how they made it work? Hard consequences for oath breaking. A king from ancient antiquity once even allowed the sacrificial killing of members of his tribe because he made an oath with another tribe to serve him in exchange for his protection. When he failed to ensure that protection, the king valued his bond more than his kinsmen’s lives even. A modern-day equivalent is one's guarantee of livelihood, vice an actual life. If we solicit a proposal framework that separates promises from paraphernalia, and explicitly places the hard consequence of partial payment on promise-breaking, we are applying ancient wisdom to our work. This theory is applied in an RFP that requires offers to be filled in for contract insertion, to be sure. * I answer with 100% certainty in fixed-price contracts, but with less in flexibly priced contracts due to the post-award influence of invoice-by-invoice cost allowability determinations. In particular, terms of the contract would allow an offer's enforcement here.

I wonder what of the CO acquisition community's corporate knowledge might benefit this exports program via public comment? Many of us have experience buying large, sole-source, technology now, and a comment articulating that experience may now influence this requirement while the export program is in infancy. This new requirement is not driven by statute, which means it is actually able to be molded by most reasonable public comments. I consider it a duty to disclose our wisdom so that the future of this world-changing tech has our stamp on it. We are, after all, going to have to buy it via contract someday. For example, the program at this point heavily values the technology package. What about on-ramps for other industry consortia to get a foothold later into the program? How has government successfully fostered that in the past? In our republic only you, the private citizen, can prevent a shift to an oligarchy. Something tells me this is what the Administrative Procedure Act's Federal Register was meant to do. Participate in your government's process while you can.

Nope. A search query on SAM today of all of Commerce’s contract opportunities shows nothing related either. This is early in the technology development phase and will probably only produce financial assistance for now. But there is nothing related from Commerce on grants.gov, from what I could tell. I’m not sure why it’s being done in the Federal Register like this.

I assume this can primarily be found in the technology package.

Nothing. Disregard it.

According to the Federal Register RFI: The RFI then seeks to learn what evaluation factors should be used to evaluate the relative merits of a proposal. This is done under the overarching E.O. direction to, "evaluate submitted proposals for inclusion under the [American AI Exports] Program."