An interesting reaction to this was provided by Herb Stein, Economist and banker. He remarked that we not only live by the sword, but by accounting rules. In some cases the accountants are mystified that citizens "just don't understand"! Reporters however, and some politicians, love it!

I still would like to have some written guidance, GAO, OFPP or other references to help. These "requirers" have the ear of my bosses!

By joel hoffman on Thursday, June 15, 2000 - 06:45 am:

James, another thing to consider from a good business judgement standpoint is to not overextend the level and extent of subcontracting involved in too broad a scope of work. As you said, you need to consider the grouping of supplies and services involved.

Aside from the fact that we probably used MILSPECS to buy the toilet seats for the Lockheed C-5, Galaxy - one reason they cost $600 each was due to markups on subcontracted parts. Same with bolts and everything else.

Too broad a scope of work overextends the amount of subcontracting with associated, unnecessary prime contractor costs (a buyer gets involved; the prime has to run all subcontracts and supply purchase orders through its accounting department for payment,etc.; the shipping department may get involved)and markups, additional delays, etc. The prime turns into a supply and service broker. Your cost really goes up.

You definitely don't want a broker, simply to avoid separate contracts for distinct lines of service or supplies.

Since you are charged with using good business judgement and this is an obvious argument, it might help you in your meeting......

By the way, I flew in both C-5a's (built in the late 60's and in the C-5b (built in the early 80's) for several years and the toilets and lavatories never had any running water, though supposedly plumbed for water!!!
Happy Sails!

I found the references but they do not help much in arguing. I can't get excited about having concrete tests done in a lab on the same contract I get aluminum alloys out of a specialty metals catalog.

The problems can be illustrated thus:

If I was buying copier leases for an office I could argue easily to have an "on demand" repair service for the copier. It would be somewhat of a stretch to add copier paper which is generally available but say that I could argue that the delivery of paper could occasion a copier "tune up" to improve performance. I start having problems when I also buy drinking water, cups and a cooler on the same contract and then when I add just about everything that I could want for my office like pencils, binders and furniture it starts again looking somewhat logical.

It seems to me that the driving factor in my example is the "natural" grouping of items from a single type of source (office supply stores), or a single technology (like copiers and copier services, toner. paper etc.)

My requirers have made their "natural group" themselves! and what their several different organizations use for their jobs. But the mix is getting wide, services, products, on-site work, tools to do work etc. Their comments are "it is logical to group all the things we need together, from several sources and select what we need when we need it". Apparently for their preferred items of one type they would choose from one award and for another type of item they might choose from another.

To accomodate this diversity I'd have to have provisions that are "ordered" on each order - like access to our facility, shipping info or packaging needs for our remote offices.

This doesn't seem to be feasable - since to use my example, they might buy copier paper from one awardee and toner from another because it "performs" better. My comment is that if we made a multiyear version of this I could sleep for three years and wake just in time to solicit a follow on!

I have another meeting next Monday and I'd like to have some plan/rationale for my groups.

By Vern Edwards on Wednesday, June 14, 2000 - 12:26 am:

James:

To the best of my knowledge DOD has not issued guidance in reaction to the Valenzuela letters. It probably thinks that the current guidance is adequate but that the Air Force and Army simply went too far.

The Valenzuela matter was about a services contract, but I think that the GAO's position applies equally to contracts for supplies.

I don't know of any restrictions with regard to you helping companies get together to form teams. Keep in mind that if you slap too many different supply requirements together under one contract the GAO may react unfavorably if someone protests. Make sure you develop a sound rationale for your acquisition strategy, one that takes all relevant policies into account.

Vern

Thanks Vern - just like an automatic encyclopedia! I'll look these refs up tommorrow. If this is a GAO opinion, has OSD or OFPP issued any guidance regarding scope that could help me explain this situation?

Is it tied to services or to products?

We have needs from specialty metals to electonics to testing and the number of bidders who can do it all is probably limited, but teams could.

Are there restrictions in the assistance we can provide to the public to assist in these players getting together or finding each other?

By Vern Edwards on Tuesday, June 13, 2000 - 06:01 pm:

"Valenzuela" refers to two letters from the Comptroller General to the Secretaries of the Air Force and Army warning them not to issue solicitations for IDIQ contracts with excessively broad work statements. The citation for these letters is as follows: Letters to the Air Force and Army concerning Valenzuela Engineering, Inc., (B-277979, December 9, 1997), dated January 26, 1998. (The letter to the Secy of the Army is an attachment to the letter to the Secy of the Air Force.)

The letter to the Secretary of the Army stated the issue as follows:

"Statements of work that are too general provide insufficient information for prospective offerors to decide whether to submit a proposal or what to offer to best meet the agency's needs. Also, inclusion of broad categories of work in one statement of work constitutes a form of bundling, since different kinds of work (or tasks in different geographical or technical areas) are combined into one procurement, and an overly broad statement of work can unjustifiably diminish competition just as bundling does, by deterring businesses, particularly small businesses, from competing for a contract, notwithstanding their ability to perform some of the work at issue. See National Customer Eng'g, 72 Comp. Gen. 132 (1993), 93-1 CPD ¶ 225; Airport Markings of Am., Inc., et al., 69 Comp. Gen. 511 (1990), 90-1 CPD ¶ 543. Provisions or conditions that restrict competition (such as bundling) are permitted only to the extent necessary to satisfy the contracting agency's needs. 10 U.S.C. 2305(a)(1)(B)(ii); National Customer Eng'g, supra."

In an attempt to build an IDIQ we are getting some homoginized requirements that after some negotiations with users have become quite broad. It is to be a multiple award contract and thus tasks will be competed but one attendee to Monday's meeting quoted a "valenzela" case where the GAO railed about the scope of a solicitation being so broad as to be unbiddable and thus non competitive. Can anyone help me locate this? Is there some way to levy some specificity out of my requirers and not let them say put in everything and say "we'll define things in a delivery order". I feel myself getting pushed into a much too open ended a situation.