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August 20, 2018 By AMK

Federal acquisition workers rate themselves highly on most skills

The government’s civilian acquisition workforce, long under pressure to improve hiring and modernize its skill sets, is feeling more satisfied with its own effectiveness, according to the latest biennial Acquisition Workforce Competency Survey released last week.

***Click on image above to see report.***

Considered the most comprehensive version of the survey yet (an 83 percent increase in response rates across agencies), it showed that the buyers rated themselves highest for issuing contract order changes and modifications, awarding contracts and competition. Also rated highly were inspection and acceptance and business acumen, said the results analyzed by a partnership between the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Federal Acquisition Institute.

Areas rated the lowest in proficiency included negotiating forward pricing rates agreements and contracting in contingent or combat environments.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/08/federal-acquisition-workers-rate-themselves-highly-most-skills/150611

June 14, 2016 By AMK

Time is ripe to dump the DUNS, industry data group says

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seems to be exploring possible alternatives to the proprietary standard that agencies have used for decades to identify companies and organizations that win federal grants and contract awards.

omb OMB leaders indicated at a recent DATA Coalition summit that they will conduct an alternatives analysis to the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, which the federal government uses through a contract with the company Dun & Bradstreet.

And the General Services Administration’s 18F team is developing an identification code that would temporarily help agencies move from the nine-digit DUNS number to another standard, according to Hudson Hollister, executive director for the DATA Coalition.

The costs and technical challenges of moving away from the DUNS to another system for identifying and tracking contractors would be simply too great, the Government Accountability Office said in 2012.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/open-datatransparency/2016/05/time-ripe-dump-duns-industry-data-group-says/

February 2, 2016 By AMK

Federal government proposing to dump use of DUNS numbers

In 2015, the federal government spent nearly half of a trillion dollars on contracts with private companies—$436,668,103,830, to be exact.

Members of the public are free to drill down into this data and track funding going to specific businesses, thanks to a series of policies designed to increase government transparency and accountability by treating information about government spending as open data—machine readable, timely and freely available online.

However, federal contracting policy requires the use of a specific proprietary data standard to keep track of entities receiving federal funds.

Known as the Data Universal Numbering System, or DUNS, the current standard was developed by business information reporting company Dun & Bradstreet. And therein lies a problem: Not only is the use of a proprietary standard antithetical to the principle of an open and transparent government, as it limits the usability and accessibility of the data, but the government has already recognized that requiring the use of DUNS grants Dun & Bradstreet a monopoly on data that uses DUNS numbers, reducing competition and increasing costs.

Fortunately, the General Services Administration, the Defense Department and NASA have recently proposed to amend federal contracting policy to eliminate the requirement to use DUNS, which would make data on government spending more transparent and usable by the government and the public alike.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/tech-insider/2016/01/us-government-making-it-possible-dump-duns/125293/

August 26, 2015 By AMK

Agencies rely on contractor tool to spot procurement errors

Does federal contract award data need a few good proofreaders?

According to Jeff Sopko, executive vice president of the Alexandria, Va.-based PotomacWave consulting firm, about 20 percent to 30 percent of records in the government’s procurement database contain errors. “They stem from frequent changes in policy and procedures that take time to be implemented in source contract writing, as well as human errors,” he said. “The errors get pushed from the contract writing system to [the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation] with few validation checks.”

To address that problem, PotomacWave in 2012 created a software tool called FedDataCheck.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/08/agencies-rely-contractor-tool-spot-procurement-errors/119376

October 29, 2013 By AMK

DoD awarded $6 billion in shutdown contracts

The Defense Department awarded 95 contracts valued at more than $6.3 billion during the 16 days of the government shutdown this month, with the Air Force and Navy awarding contracts valued $2.7 billion and $2.1 billion dollars, respectively.

The Pentagon, which ordinarily announces awards of contracts valued at more than $6.5 million on a daily basis, suspended the announcements – but not the awards – until Friday, when it posted all the contracts that met the threshold since Oct. 1.

The Air Force awarded United Launch Services LLC, a Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture, the biggest contract during the shutdown, a $939.1 million deal for Delta IV and Atlas V rockets to launch satellites primarily for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The largest technology contract let during the shutdown was a five year, indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contract valued at $899.5 million awarded by the Navy to 14 companies for computing infrastructure support, including research, development, testing, evaluation, production and fielding of a wide range of capabilities.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.defenseone.com/management/2013/10/dod-awarded-6-billion-shutdown-contracts/72359/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

The government’s civilian acquisition workforce, long under pressure to improve hiring and modernize its skill sets, is feeling more satisfied with its own effectiveness, according to the latest biennial Acquisition Workforce Competency Survey released last week.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seems to be exploring possible alternatives to the proprietary standard that agencies have used for decades to identify companies and organizations that win federal grants and contract awards.

In 2015, the federal government spent nearly half of a trillion dollars on contracts with private companies—$436,668,103,830, to be exact.

Does federal contract award data need a few good proofreaders?

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