Vern et al;

Good stats and good question re "what is the significance of these trends .... for the 1102 series".

We need better training in the service contracts area. One or two of the courses I've had there are truly lacking. The philosophy, application, and mechanics of the Service Contract Act and how collective bargaining agreements work needs to be taught well. Real life examples of contract administration problems should be taught via case studies.

The fundamental courses for 1102 need not be changed simply because we buy a higher %age of services.

I am very interested in seeing the FPDS stats for GSA schedule usage in services over the last three or four FYs. Say what you will about Clinger Cohen, FARA, and FASA, to me the availability, scope, flexibility, and PALT of the GSA Schedules place the schedules at the pinnacle of procurement reform in the 1990s. Well, maybe the Guiding Principles added to the FAR and the resulting change in mindset ranks at the top too. So good courses on GSA schedules need to be developed. I'm sure some will ask what's to learn since FAR 8.4 is about all there is. Well, the forms and process mindset needs to be liberated. Let'em know that the lack of regulations provides the freedom, creativity, and TIME to devise great RFQs and Orders (planning, good SOWs, UCC sections L & M), and that it does not mean we become clerks working under the direction of program offices. It allows us to become the "business managers" that innovators like you, Linscott, and Nash have advocated since '90 or so(It galled me at the NCMA "World Congress in Crystal City last Month that the speakers were talking of 1102 as business mgrs AS IF it were some new born concept). Pardon, I pontificate.

Dave Berkey, CO, US Dept. of Energy, Morgantown,WV
304.285.4990

By Kennedy How on Monday, June 5, 2000 - 12:27 pm:

With respect to the activity I'm at, it has been the policy of the Acquisition management to contract using long-term requirements-type or IDIQ contracts for supply items, to the maximum extent practicable. This is in the secondary (spare parts) arena. While I wasn't involved in how this decision was arrived at, my understanding was that it decreased the number of routine buys that were being constantly generated. This was in conjunction with a major emphasis on the reduction of Admin Lead Time. Full-blown procurements tend to inflate this, and due to direction to the Army to reduce depot stock, there had to be a way reduce qty stored, but also be responsive. Increasing ALT wasn't the answer, so we went to long-term contracts. Delivery Orders cut through the procurement process, so managers can be more responsive to stockage levels.

Kennedy

By Vern Edwards on Friday, June 2, 2000 - 03:00 pm:

Here are some statistics about awards in excess of $25,000 in FY94 (1 Oct 93 through 30 Sep 94) and FY99 (1 Oct 98 through 30 Sep 99):

The table below shows the distribution of actions over $25,000 by type of action:

 

  The table below shows the distribution of obligations on actions in excess of $25,000 by type of action:
 

Note the changes in the distributions between new awards and orders. Presumably, the changes reflect the increased use of task order contracts, but I suppose that there could be other explanations.

Another interesting statistic has to do with what the Government buys. In FY94 Service Category R, Professional, Administrative, and Management Support Services, was the third largest of all categories of purchases, accounting for $13.6B worth of obligations, which was slightly more that the largest supply category, FSC Group 15, Aircraft and Airframe Structural Components, which accounted for $13.2B. But in FY99, Service Category R was the largest category, at $18.5B, while the largest supply category, still FSC Group 15, was at $$11.5B.

Yet another interesting statistic is that credit card purchases now account for slightly more than 66 percent of all actions of $25,000 or less. This is a definite trend. In FY97 they were slightly less than one-half of such actions.

Credit card purchases account for more than 40 percent of obligations on actions of $25,000 or less and they are rapidly approaching the 50 percent mark. In FY97 credit card purchases accounted for less than 25 percent of such obligations.

Assuming that these numbers reflect trends that will continue in FY2000 and beyond, even if at a slackening pace, what if any is the significance of these trends for Federal acquisition in general and the GS-1102 career field in particular?

P.S. In FY99 the top 100 contractors received 52 percent of all obligations in excess of $25,000. The top ten contractors received 28.3 percent of those obligations. Small businesses of all kinds received 23 percent of all obligations, including obligations of $25,000 or less. Everybody else divided what was left.