Army Corps of Engineers | The Contracting Education Academy

May 6, 2020 By cs

Job order contracting: The Army’s own IDIQ procurement solution

Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts have been used by the United States Armed Forces as a standard form of construction procurement for nearly a half century.

IDIQ contracts deliver both flexibility and cost by allowing owners to complete an unlimited number of construction projects under a single, longstanding contract rather than needing to take each individual project to bid. There are several types of IDIQ contracts, but one particularly effective method is Job Order Contracting (JOC), also referred to as a SATOC (Single Award Task Order Contract).

Originally created by the Army Corps of Engineers, JOC is now utilized by all levels of government. JOC’s popularity and success is due to its process design, which emphasizes collaboration, continuous improvement and LEAN principles. Every JOC program is based on a Unit Price Book, which provides preset prices to any tasks needed to complete projects detailed in the Scope of Work. Owners can order any job or task listed in the Unit Price Book from the awarded contractor without having to take an individual project through a bid process, since tasks are priced in advance.

Ken Davis helped implement the JOC program at Fort Stewart during his 38 years of service to the U.S. Army. Davis emphasized time saving as one of the advantages of Job Order Contracting

“We were bidding on everything one at a time with individual, standalone contracts. We had to come up with specifications for every single contract or task order. JOC allowed us to begin projects in about half the time it took to do a standalone contract.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-insights/2020/04/job-order-contracting-the-armys-own-idiq-procurement-solution/

February 28, 2020 By cs

DHS waives contracting rules for border wall

The Department of Homeland Security will waive traditional contracting rules to expedite construction of a wall along sections of the four states on the southern border.

According to a Federal Register notice published Feb. 20, DHS is looking to accelerate the tempo of construction projects in targeted sections of the planned border wall through a broad waiver or requirements of the use of open competition, pricing data, wage determination and other aspects of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

In a Feb. 18 appearance on Fox and Friends, Chad Wolf said a section of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, gives DHS the authority to waive the rules to expedite contracting for the wall. Wolf said the agency has used the same authority to waive environmental rules.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2020/02/18/dhs-waives-border-wall-wolf.aspx

May 9, 2019 By AMK

FEMA showed weak mastery of contracts during hurricane response and recovery

Four agencies providing disaster relief following the triple hurricanes and California wildfires of 2017 failed to keep proper records of contracts with suppliers, rendering it impractical for the Government Accountability Office to fully track $5 billion in spending.

GAO’s report released on Wednesday examined 23 sample contracts let after the disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard and the Defense Logistics Agency. Its conclusion: the full extent of contracting related to the 2017 disasters is unknown due to Homeland Security Department’s irregular schedule for closing contracts and inconsistent use of standard contracting codes.

Disaster relief contracts for everything from ready-made meals to tarpaulins can be awarded prospectively—before anyone knows the date of a coming act of God—or after the storm or fire has rendered thousands homeless or living in damaged property.

But among the contracts studied as of June 30, 2018—following a record-setting displacement of 15 percent of the U.S. population from several natural events—GAO reviewed the three-fourths of the obligations that were let by FEMA and the Army engineers and found that the Homeland Security Department violated procedure with early closures of what are called national interest action codes. Those numbered codes, administered by the General Services Administration, allow agencies to track data on contract actions related to national emergencies, and are available on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation to provide governmentwide insight into response and recovery efforts.

Keep reading article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2019/04/fema-showed-weak-mastery-contracts-during-hurricane-response-and-recovery/156541/

December 10, 2018 By AMK

GAO says FEMA needs to use and manage advance contracts more effectively

Following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Congress required FEMA to establish contracts for goods and services in advance to enable quick and effective mobilization of resources in the aftermath of a disaster.

As a result, the Federal Emergency Management Office (FEMA) and the Army Corps of Engineers used “advance contracts” for $4.5 billion in goods and services after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the California fires of 2017.

But in new audit report just released, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that FEMA’s guidance on the use of these types of contracts is unclear, and that inconsistent information from FEMA could impair its efforts to help state and local governments use advance contracts.

GAO found limitations in FEMA’s use of some advance contracts that provided critical goods and services to survivors, including:

An outdated strategy and unclear guidance on how contracting officers should use advance contracts during a disaster, and

Challenges performing acquisition planning.

FEMA also did not always provide complete information in its reports to congressional committees. Specifically, GAO found 29 advance contract actions that were not included in recent reports due to shortcomings in FEMA’s reporting methodology, limiting visibility into its disaster contract spending.

FEMA identified challenges with advance contracts in 2017, including federal coordination with states and localities on their use. FEMA is required to coordinate with states and localities and encourage them to establish their own advance contracts with vendors. However, GAO found inconsistencies in that coordination and the information FEMA uses to coordinate with states and localities on advance contracts. Without consistent information and coordination with FEMA, states and localities may not have the tools needed to establish their own advance contracts for critical goods and services and quickly respond to future disasters.

In its new report, GAO made nine recommendations to FEMA, including that it update its strategy and guidance to clarify the use of advance contracts, improve the timeliness of its acquisition planning activities, revise its methodology for reporting disaster contracting actions to congressional committees, and provide more consistent guidance and information to contracting officers to coordinate with and encourage states and localities to establish advance contracts. FEMA concurred with GAO’s recommendations.

See GAO’s full Dec. 7, 2018 report here: https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/695829.pdf

June 19, 2018 By AMK

Army incurred costly delays on construction of Texas hospital

The Army’s delays and added work orders for construction improvements for a hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas, cost the Defense Department more than $32.1 million, according to a new report from the inspector general.

The watchdog faulted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Defense Health Agency for a lack of guidance on reporting of expenditures.

An audit of the continuing construction of the Fort Bliss Hospital Replacement project was required under the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. When complete, it will be a 1.13 million square foot-facility housing 135 hospital beds, 10 operating rooms and 30 specialty clinics, plus an administrative building, a research building, a central utility plant, two access control points and surface parking.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/defense/2018/06/army-incurred-costly-delays-construction-texas-hospital/148899/

Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts have been used by the United States Armed Forces as a standard form of construction procurement for nearly a half century.

The Department of Homeland Security will waive traditional contracting rules to expedite construction of a wall along sections of the four states on the southern border.

Four agencies providing disaster relief following the triple hurricanes and California wildfires of 2017 failed to keep proper records of contracts with suppliers, rendering it impractical for the Government Accountability Office to fully track $5 billion in spending.

Following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Congress required FEMA to establish contracts for goods and services in advance to enable quick and effective mobilization of resources in the aftermath of a disaster.

The Army’s delays and added work orders for construction improvements for a hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas, cost the Defense Department more than $32.1 million, according to a new report from the inspector general.

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