Voyager

How about a name-and-shame tactic? I've done it before and I'll do it again!

^ This is a great line of thinking.

The linked article attempts to predict the adoption of AI. It says the following regarding some of the "most relevant facts" about similar adoptions in the past: Looking back over the past two decades, can you recall any particularly good or bad regulations that facilitated or impeded the adoption of information technology (i.e., digital home and business)?

https://www.wifcon.com/pd15_206e.htm You missed the best part of this website: go to WIFCON.com, then on the right side go to "Legal", then "Protests", then "By FAR". This link’s case references are found under FAR 15.206(e).

@Vern Edwards I was just streamlining my post from my phone, late at night. Here are my sources cited: Harris IT Servs. Corp., B-406067, Jan. 27, 2012 Ahtna Support and Training Services, LLC, B-400947.2, May 15, 2009 I get it, I should practice what I preached about trusting the experts. Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake. If you have any other qualms with what I've written, let me know.

What? We do business with the usual suspects in a consolidated industry pool. When you change that, please let me know - I would like to join your version of reality. I can see it now - so many fewer clauses. And yes, I try my best to allow new entrants through proper requirements analysis in clause selection, but I cannot speak for the Acquisition Workforce as a whole.

Let’s be sure to state the problem clearly for the readers, so no one relies on any protest risk hearsay. Too often a CO will “trust the experts” in the legal office on protest risk, and take zero risk as a result. This forum teaches you how to surpass that timid banality. I like the way @Patrick S and the folks at MITRE summarize the problem at hand here, in their Contract Protest Diagnostic Tool, Section 3.8.1: “The GAO will review the source selection records to determine whether an agency’s award decision is reasonable, adequately documented, and consistent with the evaluation criteria in the solicitation. If disparate treatment is found, the evaluation process is unreasonable.” Now, let’s say the three-year relevance threshold is not used in the solicitation. CPARS is essentially just a source, albeit one in which we know all offerors’ recent past performance information will be. This source easily avoids the disparity problem described above when it’s used for contracts ending within three years of evaluation. What is the next “source” (or maybe it’s a technique?) we should use for the older contracts, though? I’m asking if there is a reliable source we can document we’ve consulted for all offerors, to avoid the disparity problem for those older contracts. Something used commercially, maybe?

That would be @bob7947, a real scholar of scholars, and one to whom I owe my thanks as well. We all do. Some even do for 26 years of this service now!

Many offices view it as a standard of reasonableness, necessary for logistical reasons. CPARS archives a contract's ratings three years after physical completion. Without CPARS, the likelihood of disparate treatment of offerors becomes higher. In your practice, how do you solve for that problem?

The banner now says "26 Years Online"!

I assume you are just looking for experienced CO input on whether this should be a contract to which you refer the government evaluators in your proposal. I would expect when the relevance threshold is barely met, the contract could result in the potential for high relevance (if its scope, size, and complexity warrants it), but the Government's case for assigning it a strength guiding the adjectival rating would be tarnished by age. Perhaps a strength could be assigned, but nothing more significant, and likely a pass. The reasonableness standard of the GAO allows the evaluators to write their assessment either way and not be judged here, because they have an out in your reference contract's age. You should find a more recent one or offer something elsewhere in the proposal that convinces them they want to use your old contract as a strength.

I think the problem with simply citing FAR 1.102(d) to anyone, especially young workforce members, is that the suggestion is incomplete. This FAR paragraph is only an invitation to research concepts that the FAR does not restrict or supplement. It is not an invitation to innovate based on what you feel is sound business judgment. That is pure hubris. But that is all we will get from our people if we don't teach them how to research and take notes. The trick is getting to the kids before DAU or FAI frames success in this career field as a solving a puzzle or open-book quiz. It's more like a mystery with no end. I guess I am essentially writing of the difference between training and education.

My scenario was that the CO gave the CLIN a unit rate but no cross-reference to Section C in its CLIN description. That would leave each offeror to make a potentially disparate build-up of the same CLIN, affecting overall price term comparisons. One offer could be riskier than the other due to financing needs. Your example is even more intriguing and common, so thank you for contributing. The CO gives the CLIN a contract type but no cross-reference to Section C in its CLIN description. This as a major shortcoming in the combination-of-types (commonly and incorrectly called a "hybrid") contract. There are many predominately FFP contracts reported in FPDS with their risks shared by Taxpayers to the degree the firmness of the fixed price is almost meaningless. If you want to avoid this, write better, more specific contracts wherever specifics affect the business deal.

Where are the facts about that located? Is there a NARA search tool? What is the motivation of your inquiry?

Let's start there. In your RFP's model contract, you state what you want priced where. It's the fundamental best way for the CO to set a level playing field for adequate price competition. Picture a BAD CO that thoughtlessly does not do this. For lack of the guidance in the RFP, one offeror includes a major cost in a CLIN with a unit rate of "Lot", and another includes that same major cost in a CLIN with a unit rate of "Month". The POP is a year, so one offeror assumed a heap of financial risk over that year. The other is at risk for no more than 30 days at a time. How does the CO confidently tell the boss, "There is no finding that the price of the otherwise successful offeror is unreasonable?" It's an apples-to-oranges comparison.