The Contracting Education Academy

Contracting Academy Logo
  • Home
  • Training & Education
  • Services
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Archives for multi-agency contracting

February 1, 2013 By AMK

Watchdog wants everyone on the same page about multi-agency contracting

The Defense Department needs to modernize its procurement procedures to take better advantage of interagency contracting, a Government Accountability Office report found.

At a time when savings from multi-agency purchases of goods and services are key goals of the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration, GAO has been monitoring several agencies’ internal regulations, policy and guidance for compliance with changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

“This is particularly important for DoD, where the inconsistency we found in how its organizations addressed the best procurement approach determination appears to be due to the lack of updated policies and guidance,” GAO wrote.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2013/01/watchdog-wants-everyone-same-page-about-multi-agency-contracting/60996/?oref=govexec_today_nl,

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: DoD, GAO, GSA, interagency contracts, MAC, multi-agency contracting, OMB

December 11, 2012 By AMK

OMB touts ‘historic’ $20 billion in contracting savings

Agency spending on goods and services contracts fell by $20 billion during the past year, the Office of Management and Budget announced Thursday.

Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Joe Jordan ascribed this “historic” savings level to “a concerted and collaborative effort by all federal agencies.”

The downward trend in contracting — a $35 billion drop-off or 16 percent decrease within three years — surpasses the goal President Obama set in 2009, Jordan told reporters in a conference call. Its decline represents a “dramatic reversal of the unsustainable 12 percent contract spending growth rate experienced from 2000 through 2008,” he said.

Jordan added contract spending on management support services, such as information technology systems development, was cut by $7 billion during the past two years by “buying smarter and buying less,” another administration goal.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/12/omb-touts-historic-20-billion-contracting-savings/60010/?oref=govexec_today_nl.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cost reduction, GSA Schedules, IT, management support service, multi-agency contracting, OFPP, OMB, spending, strategic sourcing, technology

April 11, 2012 By AMK

GSA renames $48B IT contract

The General Services Administration’s professional services contract Integrations is now named OASIS, officials said March 28.

OASIS stands for One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services.

The contract is still in the pre-request for proposals stage and is expected to have a ceiling of $48 billion.

“Selecting a name for a solution is no small task; a name must not only be recognizable, but it must also convey the solution’s purpose and value,” Jim Ghiloni, the recently named program executive officer of OASIS, wrote March 28 in a post on GSA Interact.

OASIS is an integrated professional services contract with a support IT component. The principle services include management and consulting, professional engineering, and logistics and financial services. Officials have said it will be a hybrid contract with commercial and non-commercial items available through it. It will also allow for all types of contracts at the task order level.

OASIS will be a multiple-award, multi-agency task and delivery order contract. GSA officials say it will be more like a multiple-award contract or a governmentwide acquisition contract than a Multiple Award Schedule.

With the name-change, officials are focusing on the next stage. They are coming together from FAS’ Office of General Supplies and Services, Office of Information Technology Services, Office of Assisted Acquisition Services, and others to work on arranging the contract to suit agencies’ needs.

FAS also needs to finalize and post the contract in the Office of Management and Budget’s MAX Federal website. By posting it there, the government can see if another contract is already selling these same services. The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has tried to avoid duplicative contracts.

They plan on establishing a customer working group and continue to use GSA’s Interact website to gather input and share updates.

“We believe the name OASIS, generated with input from industry members, is representative of the true value this vehicle will bring to the federal government,” said Steve Kempf, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA.

About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week.  This article was published on Mar. 28, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/03/28/integrations-oasis-gsa.aspx?s=wtdaily_290312.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: delivery order, GSA, IT, multi-agency contracting, multiple award, OASIS, OMB, task order

October 18, 2011 By AMK

OMB optimistic on effort to change contracting mentality

Office of Management and Budget officials believe agencies are ready to collaborate on multi-agency contracts in order to squeeze the most value out of their funds and lessen their employees’ workload.

“Particularly in this tight budgetary environment, agencies have told us they are eager for tools that can help them stretch a dollar further and do more with less,” Moira Mack, a spokeswoman for OMB, said Oct. 5.

Agencies have dealt long enough with interagency contracts that duplicate one another, Mack said.

“We’ve heard from both contractors and federal employees that, for too long, limited staff time has been wasted setting up dozens of duplicative contracts for the exact same items and services,” she said.

Dan Gordon, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, issued a memo in September requiring officials to justify interagency contracts and blanket purchase agreements before investing a lot of time in planning for the procurement. A potential interagency contract would first have to get approval from a senior procurement executive or chief acquisition officer.

Officials would also have to search through a federal website listing proposed interagency contracts. If they find one that suits their need, they should cancel their own contract idea. If no contract suits the need, they should gather support from among the agencies to determine interest in the community, which can possibly lead to bulk buying.

However, experts told FCW that OFPP will struggle with parts of its recent guidance on awarding new interagency contracts and building business cases for proposals.

Robert Burton, former deputy OFPP administrator and now partner at the Venable law firm, said Gordon’s guidance may push agencies toward curbing their own interagency contract awards. He said officials will avoid the homework that OFPP requires to write a business case for an interagency contract or a BPA.

Until now, only governmentwide acquisition contracts, which are for IT products and services, required business cases and approval from OFPP.

On the other hand though, the guidance could possibly cause agencies to launch stand-alone contracts without economies of scale, Burton also said. Agencies don’t like to lose control of their operations or money, and they don’t like paying a fee to use another agency’s contract.

Experts also said OFPP will have its hands full in getting agencies on board with the initiative. For instance, agencies may not jump on the idea of going to a website to see what other contracts are available already. Or agencies may use their writing skills to make a proposed contract seem justified. Mack disagreed though.

“The suggestion that agencies would avoid doing reasonable comparison shopping and cost benefit analysis is dead wrong,” she said. “This guidance will help agencies stop wasting time reinventing the wheel.”

She added that OFPP left out a lot of the bureaucracy to encourage agencies in the effort.

In a post on the OMBlog from Sept. 29, the day the OFPP guidance came out, Gordon wrote that agencies have not received the advantages of bulk buying because purchasing wasn’t done in concert.

“Too often in the past, agency spending for many commonly used items was fragmented across multiple departments, programs, and components, which means that agencies often spent time writing hundreds of separate contracts, with pricing that varies widely,” he wrote.

Mack said agencies have started to buy in bulk in recent years and most recently through governmentwide strategic sourcing contracts for office supplies and domestic shipping.

About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week.  This article appeared on Oct.  6, 2011 at http://fcw.com/articles/2011/10/06/ofpp-interagency-contract-guidance-success.aspx.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, budget cuts, GWAC, inter-agency contracting, multi-agency contracting, OFPP, OMB

Popular Topics

abuse acquisition reform acquisition strategy acquisition training acquisition workforce Air Force Army AT&L bid protest budget budget cuts competition cybersecurity DAU DFARS DHS DoD DOJ FAR fraud GAO Georgia Tech GSA GSA Schedule GSA Schedules IG industrial base information technology innovation IT Justice Dept. Navy NDAA OFPP OMB OTA Pentagon procurement reform protest SBA sequestration small business spending technology VA
Contracting Academy Logo
75 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

RSS Twitter

Search this Website

Copyright © 2022 · Georgia Tech - Enterprise Innovation Institute