OASIS | The Contracting Education Academy

October 25, 2017 By AMK

GSA nominee wants competition at the task order level

Emily Murphy, the nominee to be the next administrator of the General Services Administration, sailed through her hearing last week, facing few tough questions about her plans to improve federal acquisition, and promising to address long-standing issues in the Public Building Service.

However, Murphy, a former staff member for the House Small Business and Armed Services committees, did offer some further insight into where she believes federal procurement needs to go in the short term.

“Competition and reducing waste, and increasing transparency were two of the four things I’m really hoping to work on at GSA,” Murphy told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Within the Federal Acquisition Service, which does over $50 billion in contracts on behalf of other agencies each year, I’d like to work to make sure the ceiling prices that are being set for agencies are just the beginning. When we set a price on our GSA schedule contract it’s more or less like the rack rate on the back of a hotel room door, the most you will ever pay. We are trying to make sure GSA’s contracting officers and our policies support really vigorous competition at the task order level because that is the amount we actually are going to spend so we want to get the best deal there, the most competition we can there.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/hearings-oversight/2017/10/gsa-nominee-wants-competition-at-the-task-order-level/

May 1, 2017 By AMK

More competition key to improving OASIS, GSA’s IG says

The General Services Administration (GSA) introduced the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) contracts in 2013, pioneering an objective methodology for selecting winning vendors the government could then use to procure professional services.

Since then, contracting officers awarded 261 task orders with an estimated value of $4.7 billion, and an audit released April 20th suggests GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) use and management of OASIS — considered one of its major challenges — is running smoothly.

The audit found FAS’ Office of Assisted Acquisition Services “personnel complied with price evaluation and negotiation provisions when awarding OASIS task orders and as such, we do not have reportable audit findings.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/04/more-competition-key-improving-oasis-gsa-ig-says/137227/

October 26, 2016 By AMK

Relying on bid protests is ‘absurd’

Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is not a fan of the contracting community’s increasing reliance on bid protests as a means to delay new contracts and capture taxpayer dollars as long as possible.

bad-behavior “This protest thing really ticks me off; it is so pathetic,” Chopra said Oct. 6 on a panel hosted by Nextgov and Government Executive. “It’s absolutely absurd how the culture of PhD procurement physics works in this town. Ninety percent of them don’t actually go anywhere but they delay everything.”

Chopra made the remarks on a panel assessing President Barack Obama’s IT legacy. In an increasingly competitive market amid government shutdowns and dwindling budgets, bid protests in the federal government have increased 60 percent since fiscal 2008. But their success rate—how often the Government Accountability Office sustains them—has declined from 21 percent in fiscal 2008 to 13 percent in fiscal 2015, according to Deltek data.

GAO said contractors filed 1,652 protests in fiscal 2008; they filed 2,639 in fiscal 2015. Those numbers led top contracting officials at the General Services Administration to suggest in August that agencies should build protest periods into their contracting schedules.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/10/aneesh-chopra-relying-bid-protests-absurd/132433

December 22, 2015 By AMK

Adjusting government buying habits

The White House and General Services Administration’s category management initiative isn’t just the province of procurement offices and the contracting corps. It will have real impact in program offices as well.

Even more so as the practice evolves from its current focus on common purchases to those that are unique and critical to the missions of a few or just one agency.

Managing spending by category won’t just change how common goods and services are bought, it will affect why they’re bought. Both ingredients of the “why,” requirements and demand, are generated by programs and need to be aggregated in ways that make sense for effective and efficient acquisition to achieve the desired outcomes of the agency.

The Office of Management and Budget and its Office of Federal Procurement Policy are creating an infrastructure that will affect every agency and everyone involved in acquisition one way or the other.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2015/12/adjusting-governments-buying-habits/124228

July 21, 2015 By AMK

GSA launches dashboard for OASIS contracting information

The General Services Administration launched a dashboard so federal procurement staff can compare data on the agency’s newest contracting vehicle, according to a July 13 GSA statement.

The GSA calls OASIS, which is short for One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services, a first-of-its kind contract vehicle for contracts that span multiple disciplines, such as management consulting, logistics and finance. The OASIS dashboard, a tool that GSA says “takes OASIS data to the next level,” is now available for use by the federal contracting community.

The dashboard lets federal procurement professionals view and segment OASIS and OASIS Small Business data by federal agency and industry partner, and then build customized downloadable reports, the statement says.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/gsa-launches-dashboard-oasis-contracting-information/2015-07-14

Emily Murphy, the nominee to be the next administrator of the General Services Administration, sailed through her hearing last week, facing few tough questions about her plans to improve federal acquisition, and promising to address long-standing issues in the Public Building Service.

The General Services Administration (GSA) introduced the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) contracts in 2013, pioneering an objective methodology for selecting winning vendors the government could then use to procure professional services.

Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is not a fan of the contracting community’s increasing reliance on bid protests as a means to delay new contracts and capture taxpayer dollars as long as possible.

The White House and General Services Administration’s category management initiative isn’t just the province of procurement offices and the contracting corps. It will have real impact in program offices as well.

The General Services Administration launched a dashboard so federal procurement staff can compare data on the agency’s newest contracting vehicle, according to a July 13 GSA statement.

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