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Our popular Construction Contracting course begins May 4th — Make plans now to attend!

This course answers the important question: What makes construction contracts so different?

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech is offering the four and a half day Defense Acquisition University course, CON 244: Construction Contracting, during the week of May 4, 2020.

Students attending Georgia Tech’s contracting classes work in teams to tackle real-life contracting problems.

The course focuses on government contracting issues unique to the construction field.  Topics include: construction planning, construction performance monitoring, funding contingency considerations, environmental impact concerns, special contract terms and conditions, construction contracting in a commercial setting, the Construction Wage Rate Requirements statute (formerly known as the Davis-Bacon Act), the design/build strategy, schedule delay analysis, constructive changes, project acceleration, construction contract quality management, and much more.

For more details, and to register for this course, please visit: https://pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-244-construction-contracting.

Who Should Attend 

Contracting officers, contract specialists, contracting officer representatives, program/project managers, small business specialists, and industry contracting personnel.

Georgia Tech provides a highly interactive learning environment that places emphasis on problem solving and practical application.
How You Will Benefit

Attendees learn how to:

  • Apply federal acquisition laws and regulations, including Department of Defense and other agency supplemental regulations, agency policies and procedures, and best practices in soliciting, awarding and administering construction contracts.
  • Contrast typical support requirements with a federal Construction Acquisition Plan in accordance with FAR Parts 7 and 36, DFARS Parts 207 and 236, and agency supplements, policies and procedures.
  • Develop a construction solicitation package in accordance with the FAR, agency supplements, and agency policy/procedures.
  • Evaluate, using appropriate procedures, construction offerors and the contract awardee.
  • Determine the applicable construction contract administration (compliance) approach, using the FAR, DFARS, DoD regulation/guidelines, and other relevant agency supplements, procedures and best practices.
  • Formulate a remedy — based on the appropriate clause for a changed construction condition — in accordance with federal and DoD acquisition and other agency laws, regulations, and best practices.
  • Document appropriate actions necessary to verify costs in order to authorize construction progress payments and initiate construction contract closeout.
Act Now

Plan to join your colleagues in attending this thorough and engaging examination of the federal construction contracting process.  Complete registration details are right here.

Credit

Students successfully completing this 4.5-day course receive 32 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) from the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and 3.2 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from the Georgia Institute of Technology.  These credits satisfy the latest Level III Federal Acquisition Certification-Contracting, or FAC-C, training requirements.

Added Benefits

You’ll learn in a small group setting at Georgia Tech’s world-class Global Learning Center where you’ll engage in real-life problem-solving exercises.  You’ll receive expert instruction, a printed student guide to be used back on the job, valuable handouts, and exclusive electronic resources.  Plus, a complimentary breakfast is provided each morning, along with snacks throughout each day.

Registration

For more information, cost, and the registration link, go right here: https://pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-244-construction-contracting.

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White House budget office wants to know how you would make contracting more efficient

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has put out a call to outside organizations and the public to share how they think the government can reform its procurement of goods and services.

The challenge was announced at the White House Summit on Federal Acquisition and Supply Chain Management, where industry professionals and OMB officials spoke about reforms to the government’s procurement processes, such as reducing the cost and time of acquisitions. The government is accepting responses on how to modernize its $575 billion supply chain and acquisition processes by Feb. 17.

“The purpose of the challenge is idea creation to catalyze new thinking in government procurement around best practices, more strategic orientation and applying what we learn from world class, private sector and public sector opportunities to the U.S. federal government acquisition and supply chain management capabilities,” said Margaret Weichert, OMB deputy director, at the summit.

OMB is looking for feedback from researchers, academics, good government groups, and private industries on data and pricing solutions, market research, technology, human capital, benchmarking against industry and more. Weichert said in a press release that the challenge supports goals of the president’s management agenda, such as eliminating redundancies, increasing government effectiveness and modernizing the workforce.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/01/white-house-budget-office-wants-know-how-you-would-make-contracting-more-efficient/162669/

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How much do you want to become a ‘FAR master’?

Whether you are a government contracting official or a government contractor, your success hinges on your mastery of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) — the rules that must be followed in acquiring goods and services.
Don’t miss the opportunity to learn all about the FAR — side-by-side with your peers.
The FAR’s rules are voluminous — 2,000 pages in all, plus hundreds of supplemental rules tailored to individual agencies throughout the federal government.  How can you be expected to find these rules, grasp their meaning and, most importantly, apply them properly?
Fortunately for you, Georgia Tech has the courses that will teach you all you need to know.  And, best of all, our instruction is based on practical application, so you will return to your job equipped with the skills and knowledge to confidently navigate all aspects of contract planning, contract formation, and contract administration.
Our FAR coursework is based on training originally developed by the Defense Acquisition University (DAU).  It’s been enhanced by Georgia Tech to provide the know-how actually needed by acquisition professionals like you.  And, best of all, our comprehensive coursework is broken-up into modules so that you can learn conveniently, based on your priorities and at your own pace.
The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech (The Academy) offers its comprehensive FAR course in four, one-week classes.  Each “module” focuses on a different aspect of the FAR and, best of all, the modules may be taken in any order.  This means you have multiple opportunities throughout the year to complete the entire course without the challenge of being away from your job or home for an entire month.
The Academy’s foundational course focuses on four distinctly different aspects of the FAR:
  • Contracting Overview of the FAR (CON 090-1) introduces the FAR and how to navigate all of the acquisition regulations.  This four-day course answers the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the FAR.  This module is considered the most challenging lesson in the course, as it provide hands-on training on the FAR’s structure, meaning, and proper application.
  • Contract Planning in the FAR (CON 090-2) presents information on the policies and procedures for the acquisition of supplies and services from required or preferred sources. Key topics in this lesson include the use of required sources, use of existing contracts, and required participation by small businesses.
  • Contract Formation in the FAR (CON 090-3) goes deep into different methods of contracting by: 1) comparing and contrasting the solicitation and evaluation of offers in sealed bidding and competitive negotiation, 2) exploring the procedural requirements of making a contract award, and 3) explaining simplified acquisition procedures as well as the policies and procedures for handling bid and size status protests.
  • Contract Administration in the FAR (CON 090-4) covers the basic principles of contract management, including making contract modifications, administration of selected terms and conditions, handling delays, quality assurance procedures, making payments, addressing disputes and appeals, and contract terminations and closeouts.
Students are exposed to realistic case studies and get a chance to work in groups to tackle real-life problem-solving exercises. 
Click on any of the course titles listed above to see course schedules and pricing.  And see our exclusive Student Resources page for a detailed outline of the content covered in each of our four FAR course modules.
Benefits of attendance include expert instruction, a printed Student Guide to be used back on the job, valuable handouts, and exclusive electronic resources.  In addition, a complimentary breakfast is served each morning, along with snacks throughout each day.  Plus, you’ll earn Continuous Education Units from Georgia Tech as well as credit toward Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA)  and Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program (FAC-C) training requirements.
All courses are conducted in Georgia Tech’s world-class Global Learning Center, conveniently located in Midtown Atlanta.  Interested in us bringing our coursework to you?  Simply contact us at info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu — we will be happy to speak with you about scheduling and quantity discounts.
Georgia Tech is an official equivalency training provider for the Defense Acquisition University and the Federal Acquisition Institute.

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Top 10 government contracting news articles of 2019

Folks just like you visited The Contracting Education Academy’s web site over 70,000 times in 2019!  
Visitors took advantage of our daily news feed, learned about Georgia Tech’s support of government projects, checked-out our upcoming acquisition course offerings, and researched numerous acquisition topics.
So, what news developments interested our visitors the most?
Below is a list of the Top 10 news developments of 2019, based on our 45,500 visitors’ interests.  Each one is hyperlinked to the original news story so you can read it again — or perhaps read it for the first time!
  1. Hill AFB’s FARSite to go away on Oct. 1st – Despite the fact that the hugely popular FAR search engine operated by Hill Air Force Base was used 2.3 billion times since its launch in mid-1996, it was decommissioned in 2019 and replaced by Acquisition.gov.
  2. There’s hope that FARSite’s useful features will be incorporated into Acquisition.gov – An uproar from loyal FARSite users — concerned that useful search features and functions would no longer be available — caused Acquisition.gov’s operator, GSA, to reassure users that “… the new site [will provide] the existing capabilities as the current FARSite.”
  3. State Dept. contracting officer indicted for bribery and procurement fraud – According to a Justice Dept. indictment, a State Dept. contracting official and a Turkish construction firm engaged in a bribery and procurement fraud scheme in which the official received cash from the Turkish owner while supervising multi-million dollar construction contracts awarded to the Turkish owner’s business partners.  The contracting official allegedly made over a half million dollars in cash deposits into his personal bank accounts.
  4. What’s your acquisition approach — FAR or non-FAR?  – During 2019, contracting officials increasingly decided to not use a traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation-based acquisition model, opting instead to use Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs).
  5. Section 809 Panel issues summary report of 98 recommendations – A Congressionally-mandated study was released in February calling for reforms in four areas of government acquisition: taking greater advantage of marketplace dynamics; allocating resources more effectively; empowering the acquisition workforce; and simplifying acquisition.
  6. What you don’t know about the Pentagon’s DEOS contract – In March, while the Pentagon’s high-profile Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) procurement was first stalled by legal action, contracting officials were preparing to take bids on its other multibillion cloud procurement, the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions (DEOS) contract.
  7. FedBizOpps to merge with SAM.gov before year’s end – In August, GSA announced that FedBizOpps.gov will migrate to a new SAM.gov site as early as the first quarter of FY20.  The merger took place on Nov. 12 with noticeable delays in the new site’s responsiveness.
  8. Why contracting challenges put VA on the ‘High-Risk’ list – In March, the GAO announced it found that the Department of Veterans Affairs had not updated key purchasing regulations since 2008.
  9. DISA, DSS award second OTA to build governmentwide security clearance system – In July, DoD officials announced they awarded a $75 million ‘other transaction agreement’ (OTA) to build major components of the IT system that will eventually handle all background investigations and security clearance adjudications for federal employees and contractors.
  10. Transition to new FAC-C acquisition workforce training requirements begins Oct. 1, 2019 – New training requirements for the civilian portion of the federal acquisition workforce — aligning the requirements with those developed to support the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) contracting certification program — are explained in our article.
Why not make a New Year’s Resolution to visit our website every weekday in 2020?  You’ll benefit by learning about the very latest developments in government acquisition!

 

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Challenged with navigating the FAR? Learn how Jan. 28-31

Georgia Tech’s Contracting Education Academy (The Academy) is presenting a four-day course, beginning on Tuesday, January 28, 2020, covering all of the fundamentals of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), including how to navigate the FAR’s 2,000 pages. 
By attending, you’ll also learn all about each of the federal agencies’ supplements to the FAR.

The course is being conducted at Georgia Tech’s world-class professional education facilities in the Global Learning Center located on campus in midtown Atlanta.

FARThis contracting overview of the FAR, covers Module 1 of the Defense Acquisition University’s CON 090: Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Fundamentals.

The course includes:

  • Identification of the basic principles of contracting by the federal government and how they’re structured in the FAR,
  • Access to and use of relevant on-line resources, including tools developed exclusively by Georgia Tech, and
  • Instruction on how to locate, properly cite, and interpret the FAR, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), and other agency FAR supplements.

More information about this course is available at: http://www.pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-090-1-contracting-overview-far.  Complete registration information is located there, too.

Students attending Georgia Tech’s classes work in teams to tackle real-life contracting problems.

Originally designed exclusively for federal contracting officers, this course’s scope has been expanded by The Academy so that it is relevant to multiple audiences, including contractors seeking to learn more about the federal contracting process, federal officials who need to satisfy job-related continuous education requirements, and anyone seeking more information about the federal acquisition profession.

In all, there are four modules that make-up the complete CON 090 course series.  Information about the entire series can be found at: https://pe.gatech.edu/courses/con-090-1-contracting-overview-far.

The Academy’s complete list of government acquisition courses, and course scheduling, is at: http://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/training.

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech is an official equivalency training provider of the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and the Federal Acquisition Institute.

Students attending CON 090 courses at Georgia Tech receive expert instruction, a printed Student Guide, helpful handouts, a deck of FAR Cards, and access to exclusive on-line resources.  Students earn 2.8 CEUs.  In addition, a complimentary breakfast in provided each class day.

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Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

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