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By
formerfed on Wednesday, October 02,
2002 - 09:32 am:
One thing puzzling to me is the apparent lack of
understanding within our community on how to buy services. GSA
issued rules stating that quotes are solicited, ideally on a
fixed price basis, from three sources. GAO did a review and
found very few instances of proper compliance. The last I heard
was legislation was pending that requires DoD to do much more
than just soliciting three sources. I've talked to several
vendors and they almost universally say they don't see orders
that follow the rules.
My question is why aren't CO's doing this? Is it because CO's
still haven't got the procedures, don't understand them, don't
care, or just want to take shortcuts to get the work out? If I
had to guess, I would say the orders get placed by low graded
purchasing agents or contract specialists that never receive
training or information. There are large amounts of money spent
on services, and I bet many orders are way over priced for the
work done. What do you think is the reason?
By
Anon on Wednesday, October 02, 2002
- 11:13 am:
We set up BPAs for engineering services with
contractors who hold MAS and compete the task orders among them,
maybe we aren't continuously adding more MAS contractors to our
BPAs. But our customers are happy and we have enough work and
pressure "to get the work out" that we are probably taking the
easy way out. We comply with Part 8, but are we really taking
that "extra step", I'm afraid the answer in probably no.
By
Vern Edwards on Wednesday, October
02, 2002 - 02:29 pm:
formerfed:
Legislation is more than just pending. See Sec. 803 of the DOD
Authorization Act for FY 2002.
Vern
By
Anonymous on Wednesday, October 02,
2002 - 02:57 pm:
ANON 11-13 May I ask as to what kind of engineering
services?
By
Anon on Wednesday, October 02, 2002
- 02:59 pm:
Marine engineering/naval architecture.
By
Anon on Wednesday, October 02, 2002
- 03:34 pm:
In all fairness, formerfed, these BPAs were
established about 4 years ago so the market of MAS marine
engineering firms may have changed but I would presume that
there are other engineering firms out there who specialize in
the disciplines you may be looking for, do a sources sought,
market research, encourage firms to set up MAS contracts.
The one thing I noted is the comment that gov't contracting
offices are not actively seeking MAS firms, the shoe can fit on
the other foot in that firms are not aggressively marketing
themselves. Myself, I love competition, it's always made my job
easier, and I always felt I got a much better deal. Or as we
used to say..."SSS" (sole source stinks).
By
Anon2U on Wednesday, October 02,
2002 - 04:09 pm:
From my experience, the only time GSA MAS should be
used for services is when they are for urgent requirements of
short duration, e.g. need a few guards on some doors by tomarrow
for three weeks. Otherwise, full and open, or a set-aside
variation of it is the only way to ensure a competitive
reasonable price.
GSA schedules have hourly fixed rates of non-matching job
descriptions that are overpriced on the surface and when you
compete the work between the vendors, they start changing rates
and labor catagories as the want. You are stuck with GSAs terms
and conditions too. I absolutely hate making GSA Delivery Orders
for services being paid by the hour.
Why by the hour and not FFP? Because the program office wants
employees not contractors. They want the contractors to do what
they say when they say it. Also many of the contractors are
acting as quasi division chiefs and put the programs together
for a government employee's approval. You can't cost out that
out for FFP.
Why do I do them? Because management says to just get it done
and don't be taking the time to do full and open. All the
program office wants is the award given to their prefered
company because they know the people they are trying to hire
(either professonally or personally). One PM even hired his own
son this way. GSA is easier to game the system because most of
the protest rules don't apply and they can use any excuse to
elimiate the companies they don't want.
I have some contracts with rates determined through full and
open competition and all the workers are being stolen away by
other contractors in the agency who have GSA delivery orders at
outrageous rates and can therefore afford to pay the workers
higher wages for less work. Then I get to hear from the
contractors how we have squeezed them so hard that they can't
perform.
It is a screwed up mess and I would applaud the elimination of
services from schedules.
By
Vern Edwards on Thursday, October
03, 2002 - 02:19 pm:
Many people find the schedules for services useful and
use them effectively.
By
GeneJ on Friday, October 04, 2002 -
11:09 am:
Hi all
All of the service contracts source selections I've worked on
started off stating that the most important criteria were the
Technical/Management approach. However, when time came to award
we were just not smart enough to justify that this ~10% cost
delta was justified due to these technical advantages. We seem
to end up forcing the offerors into a race for the bottom. The
offers end up with just few well compensated broadly experienced
folks, and a bunch other folks compensated at low rates that
provide minimal value, serving only to keep the rates down. I
think that this is more of a contract administration problem
than a source selection problem. But, when they write a cost
plus task order and the outcome really is impossible to define,
I don't know the answer.
Fixed price/performance based does not make a lot of sense for
the hardest to define tasks. What I want to minimize is the
overhead rate and number of their managers spending their days
(charging the project) in meetings with our management. If I can
pay a rate that lets the contractor's folks work without
checking internet jobsites 5 times a day that's better for me. I
think the monstrous lead time of getting a contract is the
direct cause of many of these problems. The offeror values the
people who get contracts and not the workers. I'm sure this is
true in all other industries as well just less so. On the few
times I've used the schedule I've not seen any management
overhead charging the project.
Gene
By
formerfed on Friday, January 03,
2003 - 09:16 am:
Federal Computer Week contains an article about a
recent DOD IG audit on the use of FSS Schedules. The audit
looked at the way DOD places orders with small businesses and
the extent of market research conducted. The audit entailed a
review of 71 orders placed at a total dollar value of $259
million. I just calculated the average order at $3.6 million.
Here is what the IG found:
88% of the orders for products had inadequate or no review of
contractor price lists
82% of orders for services had inadequate or no review of
contractor price lists
75% of orders for a combination of products and services had
inadequate or no review of contractor price lists.
70% of orders placed without a request for discounts from the
contractor
50% of orders placed on a sole source basis or without obtaining
competition
This is amazing. I don't see how so many CO's and acquisition
offices don't get it. These are examples of why Congress will
impose restrictions on the use of FFS Schedules. They are one of
the best things going when are used properly. But when the IG
finds things like this over and over again, the actions Congress
will take hurts everyone. I just wonder how much DOD overpaid on
these orders.
By
Anonymous on Friday, January 03,
2003 - 12:38 pm:
The terrible thing about this is that it does happen
over and over again and despite rule tweaking. It would be
different if the percentages were small over history. The sad
truth seems to be that without treating so called responsible
officials like children they will take short cuts to get the
goodies. Just like children.
I don't know the answer. An overly rule bound system has
nontrivial costs, but removing rules seems to result in this
sort of thing. If sound processes for IT buys were secret it
would be one thing. They are not. They have been discussed over
and over in literature and training.
The one suggestion I do have is to remove the people or even
agencies that cannot show responsible behavior from the list of
those with power to make these statistics.
By
Mondayanon on Monday, January 06,
2003 - 08:07 am:
But you also should understand that GSA doesn't care
whether the schedules are used properly or not. They like the
business. If they did care, they'd be policing the system or at
least monitor it.
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