Don Mansfield

I interpret this as a risk that the Government would generally pay more. Why do you think this would necessarily be the case?

Disregard the RFO. Assume the current FAR permitted use of FAR part 13 without a dollar limitation.

Keep in mind FAR part 13 permits use of any appropriate combination of the procedures in parts 13, 14, 15, 35, or 36.

What would be an example of there being a problem with the authority to use SAP for something exceeding the existing dollar limitations?

Not referring to the RFO. Assume there would be no dollar limitation for using SAP--commercial or not.

What would be wrong with permitting the use of SAP without a dollar limitation?

@cdhames Have you read RFO 12.102(b)?

I'm not seeing a problem from a fiscal law perspective, assuming there was a bona fide need on 9/30/25.

According to FAR 42.1501(a), Past performance information includes both the records of performance (facts) and ratings of performance (opinion). The ratings are based on common criteria in theory. Amazon star ratings only tell us others' opinions. Comments may relate facts, but they are impractical to verify.

Experience: What you have done? Past Performance: How well did you do it? Both involve looking in the past, but they ask different questions.

No Yes In competent hands I don't know. One thing I have noticed in my experience is that giving a contracting officer the authority to be efficient is not enough to make them efficient. What you described in #2 is efficient, but some contracting officers are just too chicken sh#! to try anything that hasn't been done before. So, that's part of it. When teaching source selection, one of my favorite exercises is to have students devise a method to select a contractor to fulfill a need. They are to assume that they do not work for the Government and they have never heard of the FAR. Any reference to the FAR or using any FAR Speak is prohibited. They are just business people trying to solve a business problem. The objective is to do what's best for the company. The students would typically come up with procedures that were efficient, rational, and even creative. After they presented their procedure, I then tasked them to identify any rules in the FAR or DFARS that would prohibit the use of their procedure if it were used in a Federal procurement. They typically couldn't find anything. Some students understood the lesson, but others still feared a protest even though they couldn't identify any reasonable basis for one. It just didn't feel right to them. It's not what they are used to, so something must be wrong with it. This mindset is pervasive in Federal acquisition.

You are using LPTA on something over $100 million?

FYI, this is what I wrote: "Lastly, the authority to establish BPAs under multiple-award contracts could be problematic. Unlike ordering under Federal Supply Schedules, when ordering under multiple-award contracts there is a statutory requirement (41 U.S.C. §3302(c)(2)) to 1) notify all contractors of the intent to make an individual purchase (defined as a task order, delivery order, or other purchase) and 2) afford all contractors responding to the notice a fair opportunity to be considered for the individual purchase. Having said that, the RFO Practitioner Guide for part 16 states “Contracting Officers must create ordering procedures for the BPA that provide fair opportunity to all BPA holders, not all contractors under the IDIQ.” That doesn’t seem to comply with the statute—we may have to wait for a protest before we know for sure."

I didn't catch that, but I assumed they were implying that was now possible. I agree that it seems the RFO folks believe they are being innovative.

Good question. I would start with asking "what problem is the 8(a) Program supposed to solve?" and "to what extent has the 8(a) Program solved that problem?" I would like to see an objective study that answers those questions.

I'm covering the RFO for Contract Management magazine and wrote about this in the January issue. Thanks for bringing this up.

It seems that DoD foresaw this and didn't issue a single deviation.

Use of the Contract Data Requirements List (DD Form 1423) is required by DFARS 215.470(b) when data are required to be delivered under a contract.

I second Vern's response and add Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific

@Fara Fasat I agree with your yes and no. You may want to refer to MIL-HDBK-245, which says not to describe data requirements in the SOW. I know it's only guidance, but at least it's something official to counter the "we've always done it this way" folks.

Well, we wouldn't want too much efficiency.

I think you have to concede that it's possible that evaluating approaches in competitive acquisitions could be helpful in some situations. However, the fact that you, Vern, and I haven't encountered such a situation (or can think of one) should tell us something.

That's pretty good company.

I had clarified that I was using "know" as in "know for a fact." I asked ChatGPT if one could know anything about the future as a matter of fact. Here's the response: Excellent question — and very precise. If we interpret “as a matter of fact” to mean in the same sense we know existing or past facts — as something that is unambiguously true, independently of belief or prediction — then the answer is no, we cannot presently know any future fact. Here’s why, step by step: 1. Facts are truth-bearers about realityA fact is a state of affairs that actually obtains in the world. When we say, “It is a fact that the sun rose this morning,” the statement corresponds to something that has occurred. Future-tense statements, however — “The sun will rise tomorrow” — describe what has not yet occurred. Until the event exists in reality, there is no fact yet for the statement to correspond to. So even if we have overwhelming evidence that it will happen, that’s still a prediction, not a fact. 2. Truth vs. justificationA belief about the future can be justified (based on evidence or lawlike regularities), but it cannot be verified as true until the future event occurs. Knowledge, in the factual sense, requires both — justification and truth. Before the event, you can have rational expectation, but not factual knowledge. Example: On November 10, saying “The sun will rise on November 11” is justified. On November 11, after it happens, we can say “It is a fact that the sun rose.” But before it happens, the proposition isn’t yet a fact. 3. Determinism doesn’t helpEven in a fully deterministic universe (as Newton imagined), we still lack epistemic access to the future fact itself until it’s realized. We might infer it with perfect accuracy, but what we have is deductive certainty within a model, not an observed fact about the world. 4. Probabilistic knowledge is not factual knowledgeScience gives us high-confidence forecasts (e.g., orbital mechanics, weather, atomic decay rates), but these describe probabilities of future states, not facts about them. Facts are binary (true or false); probabilities are degrees of belief about truths not yet determined. 5. The logical asymmetry of timePast and present facts are accessible; future facts are not, because they don’t yet exist. That’s why philosophers distinguish between: Epistemic possibility (what could be known) Ontological status (what exists) Future facts have no ontological status yet—there is nothing there to be known “as a matter of fact.” ConclusionAs a matter of fact — in the literal, truth-corresponding sense — What we can have are rational expectations, probabilistic forecasts, and law-based inferences that become knowledge once the future arrives and the facts are established.

I didn't like "begging", so I searched for a better word. I came up with "auctioning." Specifically, I think the Government is conducting something similar to a blind multi-attribute reverse auction. ChatGPT describes such an auction as: "A blind multi-attribute reverse auction is a specialized procurement method in which: “Reverse” means suppliers compete to offer the lowest-cost (or best-value) proposal to a buyer (not the other way around). “Blind” means bidders cannot see competitors’ offers—they only know their own submissions. “Multi-attribute” means the competition is not based on price alone—other factors such as delivery time, technical quality, warranty, or past performance are also evaluated according to a pre-defined scoring model." Sound familiar?