past performance | The Contracting Education Academy

October 15, 2020 By cs

Call to change how agencies rate contractor performance rises to new level

Let’s start out with this basic truism: No one likes the current approach to rating contractor performance.

Neither the agency contracting officers nor program managers, and not the vendors who sometimes wait three to six months after the contract is complete to get a mostly meaningless “satisfactory” rating.

The data itself lacks value and transparency.

And, to be honest, it seems to have become another checklist activity for many agencies.

A new survey by GovConRx and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy shows, once again, just how little value there is in the current approach to contractor performance assessment ratings (CPARs).

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/10/call-to-change-how-agencies-rate-contractor-performance-rises-to-new-level/

September 8, 2020 By cs

GAO affirms denial of protest by contractor who failed to submit an adequately written proposal

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently denied a protest brought by a contractor who failed to submit an adequately written proposal for the award of a federal contract.

In Patriot Defense Group, LLC (B-418720.3, August 5, 2020, 2020 WL 4501318), the decision breaks no new ground legally but it serves as a timely reminder of how failure to identify the assumptions upon which a proposal is based will yield a disappointing result.

The details of this case begin with the Request for Proposals (RFP).

The U.S. Special Operations Command issued a request for proposals for multiple indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts to provide a variety of professional, technical, management, and administrative services. The RFP recited that an award would be made to all “qualifying offerors,” defined as offerors that received a pass rating for administrative and responsibility matters, an acceptable rating for an IDIQ evaluation factor, and a substantial confidence rating for past performance.

Among other things, offerors were required to submit a minimum of three past performance information sheets for contracts which were relevant to each offeror’s ability to perform the work described in the RFP. Prior contracts were to be assigned past performance relevancy ratings. The RFP warned offerors that they were required to include a rationale supporting the assertion of relevance. They were also to describe in detail how the company’s past performance on each contract applies to the “relevancy criteria” identified in the RFP.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/government-contracts-procurement-ppp/982362/gao-affirms-denial-of-protest-by-contractor-who-failed-to-submit-an-adequately-written-proposal

January 6, 2020 By cs

GSA Schedule applicants now must demonstrate past performance through CPARS, customer references

The General Services Administration (GSA) no longer utilizes Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) reports to check the performance of companies wishing to sell to the federal government through the multiple award schedules (MAS) program.

Use of the D&B reports — known as Open Ratings Past Performance Evaluations — was discontinued in December.

MAS offerors now demonstrate their performance records through one of two means:

Verifying in their eOffer submittal that they have three or more CPARS assessment reports that meet the solicitation criteria, or
Submitting a past performance narrative and list of customer references as outlined in the solicitation.

If the offeror uses the second option, GSA will contact each customer reference and request they complete a past performance questionnaire. A copy of the questionnaire can be downloaded here: GSA MAS Past Performance Questionnaire.

Source: https://interact.gsa.gov/document/open-ratings-retirement-and-past-performance-requirements-new-mas-offerors

October 8, 2019 By cs

R.I.P. PPIRS

First things first: sorry about the title of this article.

**How contractor past performance information used to flow from CPARS through PPIRS and into FAPIIS.**

The longer, alternate title would have been “Rest In Peace – the Past Performance Information Retrieval System Sleeps with the Fishes.” But that doesn’t have the same kind of obscure, punchy, epitaph-type quality that I’m aiming for. So instead, we give you get a garbled mess of an acronym to remind us that the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) – the system once used by the U.S. Government to house the final performance assessments for government contractors – is no more. As far as epitaphs go, most of us would agree that “R.I.P.” is just about what an acronym deserves.

There are various “past performance” reporting and accountability systems for contractors, including the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) (dating back to around 2007), PPIRS (first introduced around 2009), and the Federal Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) (finalized in early-2010). There is a neat little picture to help demonstrate how data flowed through the various governmental systems.

These systems continue to evolve, and PPIRS is officially no more – formally rolling into CPARS. And, in time, CPARS will be no more, eventually rolling into the multi-functional, highly integrated, federal System for Award Management (SAM), available at SAM.gov (and currently available in a semi-upgraded fashion at beta.SAM.gov).

Keep reading this article at: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/rip-ppirs

September 4, 2019 By cs

DHS wants AI to improve the contract performance assessment reporting system

The Homeland Security Department (DHS) wants proofs or viable prototypes that demonstrate how artificial intelligence can support contracting officers as they conduct past performance evaluations and make effective use of data from the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), according to a solicitation on the FedBizOpps website.

Run through the department’s commercial solutions opening pilot program to competitively procure innovative items, the solicitation was originally posted in early August but amended this week to include the government’s answers to submitted questions.

“An AI solution for CPARS may significantly assist contracting officers conducting past performance evaluations by identifying relevant past performance assessment records in a more accurate, consistent, faster and useful manner, reducing the administrative workload on contracting officers while increasing the quality of the outcome,” the solicitation states.

When selecting services over the simplified acquisition threshold, contracting officers are required to consider vendors’ past performance. CPARS is the central system federal officials use to collect and share contractor and vendor past performance information. But according to the solicitation, anecdotal evidence indicates that contracting officers face challenges trying to use the data for past performance evaluations, due primarily to the “volume of records and the inability to rapidly identify relevant reviews.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/08/dhs-wants-ai-improve-contract-performance-assessment-reporting-system/159418/

Let’s start out with this basic truism: No one likes the current approach to rating contractor performance.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently denied a protest brought by a contractor who failed to submit an adequately written proposal for the award of a federal contract.

The General Services Administration (GSA) no longer utilizes Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) reports to check the performance of companies wishing to sell to the federal government through the multiple award schedules (MAS) program.

First things first: sorry about the title of this article.

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