What is the difference between specifications and scope of work?

By Anonymous on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 12:38 pm:

Most frequently specs concern end items and sows comcern services.

By joel hoffman on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 02:22 pm:

Don't know the context of your question. Both are considered "Section C" in a UCF contract format, for purposes of application of the FAR "Order of Precedence" Clause. happy sails! joel

By Eric Ottinger on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 05:20 pm:

Anon,

I'm going to give "specification" the definition in my dictionary: "A detailed and exact statement of particulars, esp. a statement prescribing materials, dimensions, and workmanship for something to be built, installed, or manufactured."

There are military specifications (MILSPECS) and federal specifications. Specifications are usually standardized documents cited by reference in numerous contracts.

Although "scope of work" and "statement of work" are often used interchangeably by the hoi poloi, I will offend some of the legal minds in this forum if I suggest that "scope of work" may be anything other than the "general scope of work" cited in the Changes clause. I don't find their argument particularly compelling, but I don't wish to pursue this issue here. For this reason, I would suggest that "statement of work" is preferred.

The statement of work is normally unique to a particular contract and it describes what the customer wants to have done under that particular contract.

There are courses available for learning how to prepare statements of work. This is, of course, a very rudimentary answer.

Eric

By Vern Edwards on Friday, March 08, 2002 - 08:09 pm:

Anonymous:

In common government usage, the term statement of work refers to a contractual description of services, while specification refers to a contractual description of supplies (hardware). However, the distinction reflected in those usages is not really official, at least not for all agencies.

A different way to look at it is to think of a statement of work as a special type of specification. See the definitions of the two terms in The Government Contracts Reference Book, 2d ed., by Nash, Schooner, and O'Brien.

See, also, the definition of specification in the Defense System Management College's Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms (Tenth Edition) January 2001, which reads as follows:

"A document used in development and procurement which describes the technical requirements for items, materials, and services including the procedures by which it will be determined that the requirements have been met."

However, the DSMC Glossary defines statement of work as follows:

"That portion of a contract which establishes and defines all nonspecification requirements for contractors efforts either directly or with the use of specified cited documents."

The latter definition seems to make a distinction between a specification and a statement of work.

Then again, Office of Federal Procurement Policy Pamphlet No. 4, A Guide for Writing and Administering Performance Statements of Work for Service Contracts, defines statement of work as follows on page 4:

"Statement of Work. A document that describes accurately the essential and technical requirements for items, materials, or services including the standards used to determine whether the requirements have been met."

Compare that definition to the definition of statement of work with the definition of specification in the DSMC Glossary.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation does not define the terms specification and statement of work, although they appear in several places in that regulation. FAR Part 11, Describing Agency Needs, uses the terms requirements document, specification, standard, and purchase description, but not statement of work. FAR Part 37 uses the term statement of work with respect to contractual descriptions of services, but it neither defines the term nor distinguishes statements of work from specifications.

FAR Subparts 14.2 and 15.2, which describe the Uniform Contract Format, give different titles to Section C of a solicitation or contract. FAR 14..201-2(c) refers to it as: "Description/specifications," while FAR 15.204-2(c) refers to it as: "Description/specifications/statement of work."

Within the Department of Defense it has long been common practice to distinguish between statements of work and specifications, although practice is not consistent in that regard. Historically, the distinction has been especially well-established in the weapon system development commands of the military departments. See MIL-HDBK-245D, Handbook for Preparation of Statement of Work, which provides as follows:

"3.2 Relationship between Statement Of Work and Specification. The SOW defines (either directly or by reference to other documents) all work (non-specification) performance requirements for contractor effort. Qualitative and quantitative design and performance requirements are contained in specifications developed according to MIL-STD-961. Such specifications are typically referenced in the SOW, but the specific qualitative or quantitative technical requirements should not be spelled out in the SOW. For example, the referenced specification may cite reliability and maintainability equirements in terms of quantifiable mean-time-between failures (MTBF) and mean-time-to-repair (MTTR); the SOW should task the contractor to establish, implement and control a reliability and maintainability program."

MIL-STD-961D, Department of Defense Standard Practice for Defense Specifications, defines the term specification as follows:

"A document prepared to support acquisition that describes essential technical requirements for materiel and the criteria for determining whether those requirements are met."

Thus, in these usages, the term specification refers to a contractual description of raw materials and hardware while the term statement of work refers to a contractual description of services, i.e., the work that must be done to develop hardware. The SOW tells the contractor to develop the things described in the specifications.

In one non-government publication, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 5th ed., by Harold Kerzner, a standard work on project management, the term statement of work is defined on page 565 as follows:

"The Statement of Work (SOW) is a narrative description of the work required for the project."

The author says that specifications are "standards for pricing out a proposal" and "work standards."

With regard to general legal usage, Black's Law Dictionary defines specification in pertinent part as follows:

"1. The act of making a detailed statement, esp. of the measurements, quality, materials, or other items to be provided under a contract. 2. The statement so made."

Black's does not define statement of work.

I could go on about this, but I think you get the idea. Acquisition folk, including policy and regulation writers, can be careless and inconsistent in their use of terminology, which explains why some of them get confused.

By Chuck Solloway on Saturday, March 09, 2002 - 08:56 pm:

Anon,

I have asked the same question many times and have received many different answers. The most common answers seem to be:

a. A spec is for services, while a statment of work is for supplies. (Of course, there are a number of government specifications for services, so this answer doesn't really hold water.),

b. A statement of work tells what must be done, while a specification tells how to do it. (This doesn't work either since there are many performance specs and way too many "how-to" statements of work.), and

c. A specification is "detailed" while an SOW is general. (Again, this is often incorrect since there are government specifications that are pretty general in nature and some SOWs that are incredibly detailed.)

My answer to your question is that there is no universally understood answer to your question.

By the way, how do specifications and statements of work differ from purchase descriptions?