I serve as a liaison between the Program Office (PO) and the Acquisition Management (AM) Office. The AM office provides such poor service to the PO that the PO wants to avoid the AO by dealing directly with GSA through their "FAST" Program. The PO claims they can deposit their funds with GSA and get a speedy IT contract issued by GSA. Aside from organizational policies and procedures restricting this proposed action, has anyone ever heard of this so-called FAST program?

By Anonymous on Saturday, August 11, 2001 - 12:51 am:

Our Aquisitions IT division uses it all the time but I do not know anything about it because I don't buy IT. Wish I did, but never have time to get off my own procurements.

By formerfed on Monday, August 13, 2001 - 07:33 am:

The FAST program has existed now for several years. During it's startup, GSA management found itself torn between this organization and the FSS multiple award schedule program. FAST was taking huge amounts of money away from the Schedules just as they were suddenly catching on. Aside from agencies being able to bank year end money with FAST, there really aren't any advantages now. Any decent procurement shop should be able to do an IT acquisition in a very short timeframe now with all the multiple award schedule holders. The fact that your PO group goes through FAST doesn't speak well for your AM office. FAST isn't all that "fast", they charge fees, the customer doesn't have much input to the source selection decision, and the vendor is lost in satisfying the ultimate customer since they are chosen by GSA.

By Hastur on Wednesday, August 15, 2001 - 04:45 pm:

http://fts.gsa.gov/

and then select the region nearest you.

FTS is able to, as are franchise fund activities, accept money from and provide value added services to other government agencies (plus D.C. govt., indian tribal entities, etc...) The statuatory basis for FTS is different from the franchise fund actitivities.

The agreement between the organizations is simple and easier than doing something like this under the Economy Act.

A promise to pay FTS or the Franchise Funds from this year's money may be accepted under the letter of the bona-fide needs rule (a specific requirement must be cited as the intended use of the funds) and then this year's money is effectively (there are more steps to this but they are transparent to the client being served) converted into longer term money (pretty good alchemy). In FTS's case it becomes 5 year money and the franchise fund entities have differing opinions of how long they can let it last.

formerfed's comments about the utility of the program are opinions. There can be many advantages to using the FAST program, now called I.T. Solutions within FTS. The FAST program itself initially relied heavily upon a set of 8(a) contracts it created in D.C. and in Kansas City, but have greatly diversified the contract vehicles it utilizes in meeting client needs to include FSS schedules too.

The 8(a) FAST contracts are among the IT GWAC contracts approved by OMB and in the cases where a government agency desires direct access to the contracts w/o using IT Solutions value added services (typically when the program people are comfortable with their contracting officers handling the procurement) they will consider delegating authority to those contracting officers to place orders directly against the contracts in which case the fee is comparable to the industrial funding fee under the FSS Schedules program.

IT Solutions is not funded by a congressional appropriation and charges competitive fees for their services, depending upon the level of support and complexity. This is true for, to varying degress, for all franchise fund activities too. As a totally reimbursable organization they are customer centered or they go out of business.

Clients of IT Solutions have intimate involvement in source selection decisions and input on the contract family selected to meet their needs.

The industry partners ultimately selected to meet the client's needs are normally extremely focused upon exceeding expectations.

There are many satisfied customers of the IT Solutions program and many organizations trying to copy it. There are many GWACs out there doing the same thing as the 8(a) FAST GWAC, and almost all of them are having success.

If you're in a contracting capacity and have an internal client who wants to take advantage of the FAST (I.T. Solutions) program, there are ways to bring it on board that benefit you and don't leave you feeling vulnerable.

Obviously I know a bit about this and have not offered this information previously, but the thread came close to home so here's some food for thought.

By formerfed on Monday, August 20, 2001 - 12:37 pm:

Hastur,

Sorry to be so quick to criticize the program. However,the benefits you describe seem to me as more significant to the pre-FSS Schedule revamp.

With all the companies available, I don't see why anyone would not use the Schedule. The process is so simple and quick - pick several, ask for relevant qualification and experience information, select the top three or four for more detailed information exchange and perhaps include oral presentations, prepare a page or so statement of requirements and get price quotes, and make the selection. I've seen agencies do a multi-million procurement in a few weeks, start to finish.

This couldn't be easier or quicker. If it's complicated by imposing formal source selection procedures, it can't be protested.

By formerfed on Monday, August 20, 2001 - 12:41 pm:

Whoops - I should say "If it's NOT complicated..."

I read often posts and participate while on conference calls and doing other things. Perhaps I should concentrate more before sending next time.

By Hastur on Tuesday, August 21, 2001 - 10:16 am:

It's not just the procurement side of it that FTS/others are offering. It's a full-service vs. self-service model. FTS picks up the order administration piece too.

Full service typically includes:

„X Acceptance and management of funds
„X Assistance with statement of work
„X Development of statements of work
„X Order issuance
„X Invoice processing/payments
„X Order administration

+++

The procurement piece against the schedules is typically simple as you've mentioned. It can be, in some cases, easier against a GWAC. In fact, the GWAC's permit the logical follow on based awards whereas the schedules don't - one must implement a sole-source justification instead. For any in-the-know types - yes, the logical follow on is under scrutiny, but is acceptable when used properly.

I'd be glad to chat more about this stuff.

By anonwoman on Tuesday, August 21, 2001 - 06:39 pm:

This office recently had a request from a customer who bypassed their servicing contracting office and went directly to GSA for an IT contract that had apparently gone bad. The customer wanted the local contracting office to intervene on their behalf because he said GSA would not do anything to terminate the contract. Of course, the local contracting office could do nothing for the customer. So, be careful what you ask for.