cost and price | The Contracting Education Academy

December 5, 2013 By AMK

DoD official pushes back against contracting ‘myths’

Pentagon procurement official Shay Assad sought to dispel what he said were myths that the Defense Department’s contracting workforce is untrained and unprepared.

“Our workforce today is healthier and stronger than it has been in the last 10 years or so,” said Assad, who oversees pricing for the department.

Some of the myths he addressed included:

■ Reports the contracting workforce is shrinking. Assad said it has grown by nearly 24,000 people over the last five years through a combination of additional hiring by the services and through in-sourcing.

■ Reports DoD is not hiring enough experienced contracting officers. He said that DoD has focused on having 35 percent of its contracting workforce have industry and business experience — that number is about 34 percent today.

■ Rumors the Defense Department is moving toward lowest-price, technically acceptable contracts. Assad said that only one major program falls under that category and that LPTA is less than 2 percent of DoD purchasing and that he is not pushing to increase that number.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20131118/DEPARTMENTS01/311180004/DoD-official-pushes-back-against-contracting-myths-

September 30, 2013 By AMK

USPS didn’t justify $210M in noncompetitive purchases, IG says

The Postal Service likely didn’t justify $210 million in noncompetitive purchases made over two fiscal years, which puts USPS at risk for not obtaining the best price when awarding contracts, a Sept. 25 USPS inspector general report says.

Contracting officials at the USPS did not document a finding of price or cost reasonableness or write up a necessary justification in 21 of 56 statistically-sampled noncompetitive contract awards worth $37 million that the inspector general audited. Based on those findings, auditors project that at least $210 million worth of Postal Service purchases in fiscals 2011 and 2012 likewise lacked documentation to show that the noncompetitive award was necessary and not unnecessarily expensive. The mail deliverer spent $1.3 billion on contracts those two fiscal years.

Agencies must conduct a price or cost analysis to support that noncompetitive contract prices were fair and reasonable. And there must be documentation that that process took place.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/usps-didnt-justify-nearly-40-million-noncompetitive-purchases-ig-says/2013-09-26

September 26, 2013 By AMK

Comprehensive cost and price course kicks-off Oct. 14th

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech is offering a course focusing on the Fundamentals of Cost & Price Analysis in government contracting on October 14-25, 2013.

This comprehensive, two-week course begins with an in-depth review of the market research process, and provides instruction to help students understand and analyze contractor pricing strategies.

Attendees will learn to accomplish cost-volume-profit analysis, calculate contribution margin estimates, and develop cost estimating relationships in order to accomplish an effective price analysis pursuant to FAR Subpart 15.4.

After learning the basic elements of price and cost analysis, students will build and defend a pre-negotiation objective, including a minimum and maximum pricing objective with a weighted guidelines assessment. After successfully defending their pricing objectives, the students will practice face-to-face negotiations.

This course is targeted toward new hires to the contracting career field. For government contractors, this course also provides valuable insights into the government contracting decision-making process.

Student performance will be assessed by graded exams on math fundamentals and applied course material as well as an exercise for student participation and completion of negotiations.

CON 170 – Fundamentals of Cost & Price Analysis is Defense Acquisition University-equivalent training that satisfies the FAC-C and DAWIA certification programs. In addition, 7.35 CEUs are granted for successful course completion.

For more information or to register, please visit: http://www.pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-170-fundamentals-cost-and-price-analysis

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