Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government Ideas

Over the last decade, the number of laws, regulations and provisions that apply to commercial item have dramatically increased. For example, in 1996 under 52.212-5(b) there were 17 provisions of law or executive orders identified as applicable to commercial item contracts. In 2012, the number has climbed to 51. The resulting explosion of statutes and regulations applicable to commercial item contracting increases complexity, ...more »

FAR needs updated so that the contractor community does not have to submit numerous copies of forms such as an assignment of claims, novation agreement or change of name agreement. With going electronic, paperless, and electronic signatures, duplicate copies shouldn't be required.

To improve acquisition, we need to train and incentivize contract officers to take new approaches. As a CO, it is always easier to go with the safer, slower, more traditional approach. Also it aligns to their incentives (don't get protested or in trouble). We should align incentives for contract officers on: -Speed to deliver contracts -Cost savings they are able to delivery (in the end) -Bringing in new vendors -Leveraging ...more »

In business, time is money. In war, time is lives. Companies and the warfighter alike are threatened by the glacial pace of current procurement cycles. Purchases that have always taken months now take years. As prominent authorities on policy have noted (citing examples such as unmanned systems and MRAP), the USG often has the most success when bypassing the system entirely: “When it is necessary to go around the ...more »

When we started our business as an 8a, even as former military acquisition professionals, we encountered so much "red-tape" in getting on the GSA Schedule that we eventually had to hire a company to assist us in the process. 8 months and $15K later, we finally got onto the IT Schedule 70. Instead of being easy for the small company, it was hard, and expensive. I have talked to other companies who did not have the time ...more »

Acknowledging that the acquisition process is frustrating and cumbersome is a start, but to understand how to fix it starts with a willingness to look at the acquisition processes, technologies, and professionals from the perspective of a small business owner. Follow a small business owner's experience with the acquisition system - from the first sources sought to award of a contract - for a specific procurement and ...more »

In section 866 of the 2011 NDAA, Congress authorized a pilot program for the acquisition of Military Purpose Nondevelopmental Items (MPNDI). This allows products developed entirely at private expense to be purchased using streamlined, commercial-like procedures. This gap-filler was carefully “designed to test whether the streamlined procedures similar to those available for commercial items can serve as an effective ...more »

We have been registered on CCR and now Sam for several years. Part of the registration requires a listing of services/products offered. However we have NEVE$R been alerted of an rfp by a CO using this system to notify qualified suppliers.

The present system requires a marketing effort broader and more intensive than is required to sell to non governmental operations.

Contracting officers and specialists spend days each year going through proposal spreadsheets, correcting unintentional errors, and performing price analyses, cost analyses, and cost realism analyses. Technologically, the US is easily at the point where offerors can log into a single, web-based application and key in their data in designated fields. The fields automatically catch adding errors and rounding errors, which ...more »

Currently there is a Commercial Items test programs that allows use of SAP up to $6.5M for commercial items, or NDIs that have been sold to State and Local Governments. Unfortunately some design activities are wary about providing commercial item determinations because they fear it could cause them to lose control of the item to another design activity or lose Quality Assurance capabilities. There is also a military ...more »

Agencies should have more flexibility and discretion in defining and using size standards by NAICS code and ownership category to solve the ‘mid-tier trap’ that limits participation and reduces the value created by the small business program. Some departments have recently recognized the value and challenges of mid-tier businesses, many of which are successful graduates of the small business program. When successful ...more »

innovation in IT products and services in today's solutions will require collaboration by Budget, Procurement, and IT executives. many companies are frustrated at the inability of government to develop procurements that will actually allow for companies to offer different BUSINESS ENGAGEMENTS, rather than technologies alone. alternatives which will allow for companies to offer investments (with longer term financial ...more »