My agency is in the process of issuing a solicitation for Management Studies and Analysis support. The solicitation will include services such as Human Resource Management, Resource Management initiatives, Fiscal/financial management, reengineering/reinventing Government initiatives, System Analysis and Design, and IT Services. Since only one solicitation will be issued, selection of an appropriate SIC/NAIC code is difficult. We have reviewed the NAIC Code and determined that several of these codes may be appropriate but the size standard is different for each Code. One size standard may be $5.0 mil while the other Code is $18.0 mil.

We have consulted with our Small Business Representative and he indicated that we should use the $18.0 mil threshold, but question the appropriateness of that recommendation. What is your opinion?

By Ramon Jackson on Monday, November 13, 2000 - 08:31 pm:

Your agency is mixing "people" studies with system/IT analysis and design? There is overlap in system analysis and system engineering (often forgotten), but as it becomes IT design/implementation I certainly have doubts the agency will be best served in one effort by one firm.

Is this a business based scheme to bundle things for contractual convenience? If so, be prepared for a downside in execution.

By an on Tuesday, November 14, 2000 - 07:59 am:

We plan to make multiple awards and don't anticipate that all offers will propose all tasks. This is an "unrestricted" procurement, with a commitment to make a certain number of awards to small business, small disadvantaged, women-owned business provided proposals are considered to be in the best interest of the Government to award. This type of contract has been awarded at this agency before with a moderate to high rate of success. This will be the third follow-on contract of this type.

By c on Tuesday, November 14, 2000 - 10:38 am:

ANON 2

Is this by chance a DOC acquisition?

By Ramon on Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 10:24 am:

Anon2, your response lessens my fears, but does not completely eliminate them. I think there are a few firms, often large, that might do a good job in true systems analysis (people, information flows, practices, regulations and all the rest that make up an existing system) documenting the existing system and pointing out the glitches and needed modifications and then have the expertise to pass it to a hardware/software design team.

Finding two firms expert at the tasks would be easier. Coordinating the information collection, analysis and description with a second phase hardware/software design (more a selection I hope rather than build-from-scratch) is more difficult. Doing both at one selection, before the magnitude and results of the study phase are in seems a higher risk approach to me.

You really may not know the magnitude of the second until the first is at least well under way. It could be much like selecting a truck before knowing how much gravel will be produced. In that respect a single firm who will coordinate internally appears better, but those are probably outside your parameters of a "number of awards to small business, small disadvantaged, women-owned business." It appears you are taking on the role as government integrator and that has often proven to be a poor option. Taking on the role with firms selected for what should be a follow-on before even preliminary information is in seems even higher risk.

By Anon2 on Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 02:52 pm:

To C:

This is not a DOC (Dept of Commerce ??)contract. .

Ramon: There will be awards to large businesses, provided proposals are received. Our intent is to award multiple contracts for six "lots" of various types of services. Some of the awards are geared toward the small business community and some will be to unrestricted competition.

Studies and analysis of these systems will be conducted prior to any further actions. The Contractor's study will be completed and recommendations made to the agency for implementation. The proposed awards are not necessarily intended to provide the hardware or implementation efforts. Systems engineering/ reengineering efforts or recommendations for system improvements are intended for award.

One area that comes to mind immediately is our IT Systems Security shortfalls. We would expect a contractor to review our systems security procedures and make recommendations on changes or improvements and expected costs to implement those changes and recommendations.

Our inquiry is how best to represent the size standard in our solicitation. Our SBA representative provided the text book answer-and that is to indicate the SIC/NAIC that represents the pre-dominance of effort for the contract.

I think a solution to the SIC/NAIC issue is to list the various SIC that could apply to the six lots of services and depending what is awarded to whom that SIC would apply to that award. IF the size standard is $5.0 mil or $18.0 mil apply it to that effort for which the small business offeror proposed. This is my recommendation, but it wasn't received well, so that is what generated the inquiry. So i was asked to query the contracting community and any others who might visit this site to get there opinions.
What doesn't work is when a small business proposes on more than one lot - let's say one that is $5.0 mil and one that is $18.0 mil. What would you recommend then?
Some have termed this bundling and probably rightfully so, but the SBA and our SB representative reps have not taken exception to this approach because of our commitment to award a certain number of contracts to small businesses to the extent that the competitive process will allow.

By bob antonio on Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 03:16 pm:

Anon2:

The description of your procurement reminds me of the IRS' TIPPS-2 procurement. I think a realistic 5-year value of this procurement may be $250 million. You might get an idea from it but I am sure there are quite a few like this throughout government. Below is the link to the Procurement Site. Once there, scroll down to "The TIPPS - 2 Contracts" page on the left-side menu. Maybe it will be of some use.

Maybe the contracting officers involved with it will share their experience.

http://www.keicorp.com/customers/tipss_www/default.htm

By anon2 on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 07:45 am:

Thanks Bob,

I will visit the site and go from there.

By C on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 08:25 am:

If you are reserving one or more of the lots as a small business set aside (as opposed to "gearing") assigning different SIC/NAIC to each set aside lot is logical. If you are merely indicating you wish to award some lots to small business whose offer represents the best value, and being small is not a criteria, then the size standard does not matter.

By Ramon Jackson on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 08:37 am:

I may have misunderstood your procurement's intent. It seemed at the time you were going to study three management areas, reengineer, then implement results through SA and IT efforts.

After your later posts I'm not sure that tightly coupled effort is what is going on. My concerns about sequencing and interdependency are much less if this is a collection of more generalized support functions.

The only question I have is what you have already mentioned about whether this is a logical bundle of efforts.

I have no suggestion about what to do about SIC/NAIC Codes in the event one proposes on two efforts at two levels. That is the kind of detail PMOs rely on COs for. I do have an observation though. The fact it may be such a problem might indicate bundled efforts of such a diverse nature and scope that the size standard has become a difficult question.

By anon2 on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 10:00 am:

To C

This will not be a set-aside. There will be a commitment to award a certain number of awards to small businesses, womene-owened, SBD, but it will not be a set-aside.

To Ramon:

Our procurement initiative is of a more generalized nature. It is what I use to call a "kitchen sink contract" when I worked for DOD. IT covers a little bit of a lot. A broad scope so to speak.

By C MERCY on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 10:56 am:

I do not understand how,legally, one can commit to such an award scheme. I realize my inquiry is not centered on the size issue;still your inquiry raises questions in my mind. Does your agency have special legislation? If so what about HUBZONE or Veteran Owned Small Business? If its full and open how are you planning to deal with the SDB PEA or the HZ PEP? My interest lies in the fact that among other duties,I am a small business specialist and if such a scheme were legal I would be very interested in how it works. Thanks.

By anon2 on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 02:38 pm:

Sorry to confuse the issue, but my original message was not all inclusive. We are including Veteran-owned but not hubzone - it is highly doubtful that there are any hubzone contractors that have adequate capabilities - however, this will not preclude them from submitting a proposal and being considered. Hubzone contractors would probably be better off being a subcontractor rather than a prime strictly because of their size. We have received inquiries from 1&2 persons firms and they just cannot compete with Small Business what less try to compete with Large business. We have large business(es) competing with Large Business and SB competing with SB, SB will not compete against large business unless they bid the unrestricted competition - which is the six lots I speak of. SB will compete against SB, etc. (p.s. When I say SB, I am including the subcategories of small business, SDB, 8-a, Women-owned, veteran-owned, etc,etc., I use the term SB for ease of discussion.)

We have six "lots" of various services - it is doubtful that any one small business has capability to perform all six lots, but it does not preclude them from subcontracting provided they observe the "50%" rule.

As for the legality of the issue, as I mentioned before, this has been competed several times before using this strategy. It has been reviewed by Legal and by Small Business Reps. It has been protested but the issues you raise, to the best of my knowledge, were not the basis of the protest(s) - Lack of meaningful discussions, I believe, were the grounds for protest. Last go round - we awarded to 5 large businnes, 2-3 small business and 2 8-A's. They compete for task orders issued against the IDIQ contracts and normally compete against their group. I have been here only a short so I can't tell you they have not competed against Large Business for the task orders - because my analysis has not gone that far.

In addition to the small business awards, we have subcontracting goals that Large business must commmit to for subcontracting to SB, Women-owned, SDB, Veteran-owned, Hubzone, Disabled Veteran-owned. In my opinion, Small business is definitely not suffering from a loss of business based on this strategy.

From my experience, most (not all)small business specialist(s) at the agency level think only of whether the agency is going to meet their goals and by what amount, not what necessarily makes good business sense for the agancy. It is cumbersome, but this strategy tries to do both. We have some tasks that we know only large business has the manpower and the technical capability to accomplish - so we let large business compete for that effort. We also have some very good small businesses that have technical capability - but they are sometimes stretched to meet the 50% limitation on subcontracting. We try to spread the work among the contractors that received awards - and give them a fair opportunity to compete. Balancing all these things is a real juggling act sometimes.

If you are interested, I will get you the website and you can review the Draft RFP which is out for industry comment.

By CAPT MERCY on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 03:05 pm:

Allow me to point out that the HZ pep is mandatory in any full and open competitive acquisition.....therefore you must include the PEP . I was not suggesting a HZ set aside , I was merely asking how your agency was going to deal with the PEP. Also, may I point out, that if none of the lots are small business set asides, the 50% participation rule is meaningless. In all honesty I cannot understand how you can legally use this award scheme....but I am willing to listen and learn.