Contract Award | The Contracting Education Academy

April 13, 2018 By AMK

DoD can reduce time to contract

Every administration takes office with the intent to improve the government’s performance, including reducing the time it takes to award contracts for the services and products the government needs for its operations.

**The Marine Corps uses this chart as a guideline for commercial item lead times.**

Nearly every administration in the past 50 years has undertaken specific steps to reduce what is commonly called Procurement Acquisition Lead Time, or PALT. In the end, though, it’s hard to find concrete evidence of success, as complaints of excessive PALT continue to plague the acquisition system and present challenges to both government and industry.

What exactly is the problem? Why does it take too long to get to a signed and executable contract? Is it the time it takes to determine the government’s requirements? To translate those requirements into a statement of work (or similar description) that forms the basis for a solicitation and ultimately a contract? Is it the time for the government to solicit and evaluate bids for that work? To award the contract and get to a start date? To comply with all the procedures and reviews and reports needed along the way? And what exactly is “too long” a time for any or all of those steps?

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/03/23/dod-can-reduce-time-to-contract/

November 7, 2016 By AMK

FirstNet to miss contract award deadline

The First Responder Network Authority will not award the contract for its nationwide broadband public safety network on Nov. 1 as anticipated, CEO Mike Poth said.

“FirstNet will continue to execute the acquisition process outlined in the [request for proposals] beyond the Nov. 1 target date for the award,” he said in an Oct. 28 statement on FirstNet’s website. “We will continue to work diligently with our federal partners to complete the RFP process in line with the [Federal Acquisition Regulation] while being as transparent as allowable.”

Although he could not discuss the specifics of the acquisition process, Poth said FirstNet officials were “moving closer to a contract award in accordance” with the FAR.

FirstNet issued its RFP for the sprawling, national emergency radio network in January, and it outlined an ambitious procurement plan to select a lead vendor by November and have final deployment plans in place next year.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2016/11/01/firstnet-misses-deadline.aspx

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/

March 4, 2016 By AMK

‘Hack the Pentagon’: Will DoD’s bug bounty program attract top talent?

Challenged by hackers and staffing shortages, the Pentagon is inviting plainclothes techies to a competition where they can poke around military code for security bugs.

The idea is to find and fix vulnerabilities unknowingly inserted in software before the bad guys do.

The contest draws inspiration from “bug bounty” programs in the private sector open to hobbyists and professional penetration testers. Microsoft, for instance, offers a reward of up to $100,000 for attacking its software. General Motors earlier this year launched a car-hacking program that seeks glitch reports but doesn’t yet pay for them.

The military’s new “Hack the Pentagon” program, unveiled Wednesday, potentially could offer cash prizes, according to a Defense Department announcement. Perhaps some of those bucks could come from the nearly $7 billion Pentagon Secretary Ash Carter expects to spend on cybersecurity in 2017.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2016/03/pentagon-launches-open-contest-hack-military-websites/126383/

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/

Every administration takes office with the intent to improve the government’s performance, including reducing the time it takes to award contracts for the services and products the government needs for its operations.

The First Responder Network Authority will not award the contract for its nationwide broadband public safety network on Nov. 1 as anticipated, CEO Mike Poth said.

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.

Challenged by hackers and staffing shortages, the Pentagon is inviting plainclothes techies to a competition where they can poke around military code for security bugs.

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

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