FSS | The Contracting Education Academy

February 21, 2019 By AMK

Agencies may evaluate contractor responsibility under FSS orders

Contractor responsibility is to be considered before every federal contract award, but what about task orders issued under an Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract? Are contractors still subject to responsibility inquiries when competing for orders?

According to GAO, the answer is, “yes.”

Dehler Manufacturing Company, Inc., B-416819 et al. (Comp. Gen. Dec. 19, 2018), involved a procurement by the Army to provide furnishings for barracks at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. The Solicitation, which contemplated the award of a task order, required prospective contractors to hold FSS contacts that included furnishings. Award was to be made on a low-price technically-acceptable basis. Proposals were to be evaluated on a number of factors, including past performance.

Dehler timely submitted a response to the solicitation. During the Army’s evaluation of past performance, it obtained information from the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS). Of the five PPIRS reports the Army obtained for Dehler, four categorized Dehler’s performance as either “Marginal” or “Unsatisfactory.” Consequently, the Army concluded Dehler’s past performance was unacceptable and eliminated it from consideration.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/agencies-may-evaluate-contractor-responsibility-under-fss-orders-says-gao/

October 2, 2018 By AMK

GSA introducing options to help automate agency contact centers

Come the new fiscal year, agencies will have access to a set of automated contact center technologies and services through a new special item number on the General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70.

The Automated Contact Center Solutions SIN—numbered 132-20—“provides a deep pool of pre-vetted vendors with a diverse set of contact center solutions,” according to a notice on GSA’s Interact site.

The special category will include vendors offering the latest in automation technology, including artificial intelligence, chatbots, voice and speech recognition, text-to-speech and more.

Managing citizen engagement through the various lines of contact—phone, email, web portals and in-person meetings—if a difficult task. GSA’s own Federal Acquisition Service receives close to 1 million calls a year, according to CenturyLink, which holds a $1.3 million contract to manage the service’s contact center.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/09/gsa-introducing-options-help-automate-agency-contact-centers/151325/

March 7, 2018 By AMK

GSA says rule change will simplify Schedule buys, reduce proliferation of multiple-award contracts

The General Services Administration believes it’s fixed at least one of the reasons behind a proliferation of overlapping indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) multiple award contracts across the government.

Until now, there was no way for agencies to buy products and services from GSA’s Schedules program while simultaneously getting the ancillary services and goods they might need to actually make use of them.

A change to the General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR), published last month, lets agencies buy what are known as “order level materials” (OLMs) via the schedules themselves. Previously, officials said, acquisition often had to undertake two contracting actions if they wanted to buy ancillary services from the schedules.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2018/02/gsa-says-rule-change-will-simplify-schedule-buys-reduce-proliferation-of-multiple-award-contracts/

February 20, 2018 By AMK

New GSA administrator seeks to shine light where the shadows of federal procurement live

The General Services Administration is exploring how it can add more transparency to the procurement process, particularly with its $35 billion schedules program.

Since its inception, GSA’s schedules program has been hidden behind a wall where only vendors with a contract could see the solicitations and awards. The lack of transparency about what happens on those “members-only” contracts has frustrated good government groups, the media and vendors who aren’t on the contracts, but may want to join.

So GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, who was confirmed by the Senate about two months ago, has made transparency one of her four goals and is seeking not just an agency solution to this challenge, but one that would work governmentwide.

“It was one of the first conversations I had with the Office of Management and Budget. I’ve had conversations with the Office of Governmentwide Policy. I’ve had conversations with the Office of General Counsel and the Federal Acquisition Service. They are looking at all of it and are supposed to coming back to me with options on we can try and be more transparent,” Murphy said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio. “I think this needs to be addressed not just in the microcosm of the GSA schedules. If we are looking at task orders, we need to be looking across government and making sure we are not disadvantaging the schedules program versus other programs, and we are not putting our vendors or our customers at a competitive disadvantage. At the end of the day, it’s their data.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2018/02/new-gsa-administrator-seeks-to-shine-light-where-the-shadows-of-federal-procurement-live/

February 13, 2018 By AMK

New rule allows other direct costs and order level materials on GSA Schedule task orders

The General Services Administration (GSA) has finalized a major change to its Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program, allowing the purchase of incidental materials.

On FSS contracts, the new rule allows vendors to include other direct costs (ODCs) or order level materials (OLMs) on individual task orders. ODCs or OLMs are costs that aren’t specifically identified in the contract, such as a specialized tool or test equipment. GSA says the change will help create parity with commercial sector best practices.

The new rule was originally proposed in the Federal Register at 81 FR 62445 on September 9, 2016, but only recently finalized. It addresses the importance of providing the same flexibility for the FSS program that is currently authorized for other indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) vehicles, which will help reduce contract duplication and the associated administrative costs and inefficiencies.

Details at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/24/2018-01232/general-services-administration-acquisition-regulation-gsar-federal-supply-schedule-order-level

Contractor responsibility is to be considered before every federal contract award, but what about task orders issued under an Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract? Are contractors still subject to responsibility inquiries when competing for orders?

Come the new fiscal year, agencies will have access to a set of automated contact center technologies and services through a new special item number on the General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70.

The General Services Administration believes it’s fixed at least one of the reasons behind a proliferation of overlapping indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) multiple award contracts across the government.

The General Services Administration is exploring how it can add more transparency to the procurement process, particularly with its $35 billion schedules program.

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