performance evaluation | 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/

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

April 26, 2017 By AMK

Changes coming to SAM.gov

The General Services Administration (GSA) is planning to test a new version of the System for Award Management (SAM.gov).

This means that plans GSA made as far back as 2001 may be realized sometime in 2018.

At present, SAM.gov is the federal database where vendors register to do business with the government. When it went live in mid-2012, SAM was introduced as portal where, over time, several different government databases would be consolidated. Federal Agency Registration (FedReg), the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), and the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) were among the systems to be first consolidated under the SAM umbrella.

The 2012 introduction of SAM initially was delayed and, once launched, many problems were encountered by vendors and government agencies alike. Since then, SAM experienced a data breach in 2013, cost overruns, accessibility issues, and periodic interface difficulties with SBA’s small business database.

GSA now plans to resume work on the original vision for SAM: the consolidation of as many as 10 websites.

A new test site, at beta.sam.gov, reportedly is to launch between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2017.

The objective of the consolidated web site is to reduce the federal contracting burden on contractors and government officials alike by creating a single place to access a range of data, including contractor registration information, contract award data on prime contractors and subcontractors, and information about companies excluded from pursuing government work.

Eventually, the functions of 10 existing sites — including SAM.gov, the Federal Procurement Data System (fpds.gov); Federal Business Opportunities (fbo.gov), the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Subaward Reporting System (fsrs.gov), and the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (fapiis.gov) — will become a part of the SAM beta site. Once testing is completed, all of the added functionality will become a part of a new SAM.gov site. The sites that are merged into SAM.gov then will be retired.

Improvements, such as search features, will continue to be made to existing sites as the new site is being tested, GSA says.

August 12, 2015 By AMK

DoD OIG: Marine Corps program met acquisition guidelines intent, but evaluation plan not in place

Initial production was begun on a Marine Corps acquisition before a test and evaluation plan was in place.

That is the finding of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Defense (DoD) in an audit report issued August 6, 2015.

The OIG’s audit objective was to determine if the Marine Corps was effectively managing the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) project during the initial production phase. The OIG evaluated the production plan for initial production units and planned developmental testing.

The OIG found the Marine Corps generally managed the G/ATOR program in accordance with Defense acquisition guidelines in that G/ATOR Program Management Office (PMO) officials implemented reliability improvements, planned new semiconductor technology that should reduce costs and improve performance, and obtained the milestone decision authority approval for increased initial production quantities.

However, on March 10, 2014, the milestone decision authority approved the G/ATOR system to begin initial production without an approved Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP). Officials from G/ATOR PMO and the test community stated that they were coordinating to include the test strategy for new semiconductor technology and a clarified operational reliability requirement in the TEMP.

As a result of the audit, G/ATOR PMO officials plan to complete the TEMP before developmental testing begins in the second quarter FY 2017. Until the TEMP is updated to include the test strategy for new semiconductor technology and a clarified operational reliability requirement, the G/ATOR program is not ready for additional testing.

View the full audit report at: http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2015-158.pdf

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the

January 16, 2015 By AMK

Company excluded from competition protests $5 billion Army IT contract

A $5 billion Army contract program for information technology that’s almost two years behind schedule could be delayed even longer, as at least one company excluded from the competition files a protest in a federal court.

MicroTechnologies LLC of Virginia confirmed it filed a protest Jan. 9 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims against the Army’s decision to exclude the company’s bid for the Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-3 Hardware program, or ITES-3H, to supply the Army commercial IT hardware.

While all documents in the case are sealed, MicroTech General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer Aaron Drabkin said the grounds mirror those included in its protest filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which was denied in October 2014. The company raised several challenges to the agency’s evaluation of its past performance.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2015/01/microtech-protests-5b-ites-3h-contract-in-federal.html

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

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

Initial production was begun on a Marine Corps acquisition before a test and evaluation plan was in place.

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