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January 3, 2019 By AMK

DoD’s new rules of the road for ‘other transactions’

For over 60 years, the U.S. government has entered into agreements called “other transactions.”

The Other Transaction Authority, or OTA, permits specific agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, to enter into agreements “other than standard government contracts or other traditional mechanisms” like procurement contracts, grants and cooperative agreements.

While OT activity continues to increase, formal guidance regarding the effective use of such agreements has been sparse. In an effort to articulate some rules of the road, on Dec. 3, 2018, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued its broad “Other Transaction (OT) Guide.”

While the OTA has been available to the DoD since the late eighties, the DoD has ramped up its OT activity in recent years to obtain research, cutting edge technology and even full production of military hardware, awarding “$21 billion through 148 OTAs between 2015 and 2017.”

Congress has stated that the DoD “has authority to use OTAs with the most flexible possible interpretation.”  As observed by the Government Accountability Office, OT agreements “can be useful in attracting … companies that have traditionally not done business with federal agencies.”

By its own terms, the guide was not intended to – and does not — provide step-by-step, mandatory instructions for the exercise of OTA by the DoD similar to the instructions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, for traditional procurement contracts. The guide cautions readers that it “is not a formal policy statement,” and does not purport to offer a final “interpretation of statutory, regulatory and formal policy requirements.”  The guide states that those seeking to enter into an OT agreement “should consult with legal counsel.”

Nevertheless, the guide covers the waterfront of the DoD’s OT tools, and provides helpful examples, definition and context. This advisory highlights some key aspects of the guide.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/766534

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cooperative agreements, DoD, grants, OT, OTA, other transaction authorities, other transaction authority, procurement contracts, research, research and development, technology

January 2, 2019 By AMK

What to expect from ‘other transaction authorities’ in 2019

If there is one term that has punctuated government contracting in 2018, it is “OTA.”

The use of OTAs or “other transaction authority” agreements has grown significantly in the federal government over the last year, due to this contract vehicle’s ability to help federal agencies rapidly incorporate new technologies required to ensure the success of today’s complex missions.

Although this style of contract is not new to the federal contracting community (in fact, it was brought onto the scene in the 1950s to aid NASA in the space race), we can expect to see additional use of OTAs to gain access to groundbreaking technologies faster and more efficiently in 2019.

There are three things you can expect to see from OTAs in the next year and beyond.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2018/12/what-expect-other-transaction-authorities-2019/153713/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: DHA, DoD, HHS, NASA, NSA, OTA, other transaction authorities, other transaction authority, prototype, prototyping, research, research and development, TSA

June 22, 2018 By AMK

Congress puts more scrutiny on OTAs

In the wake of Oracle’s successful protest of a $950 million “other transaction authority” award by the Army to REAN Cloud, House appropriators are putting the Defense Department on notice that they’ll be keeping a close eye on future OTA awards.

For appropriators, as was the case for the Government Accountability Office, the issue is the use of such awards for procurements that don’t fit the experimental or prototype model that OTAs were intended to handle.

The flexible procurement authority is “an important tool to provide flexibility and agility for cutting-edge research and development projects and prototypes,” lawmakers wrote in a legislative report accompanying the defense funding bill released by the House Appropriations Committee on June 13. “However, the Committee is concerned with the lack of transparency on the use of OTA authority for follow-on production procurements.”

The bill requires that the Secretary of Defense notify House and Senate defense committees 30 days in advance of obligating funds for production contracts under other transaction authority.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2018/06/15/congress-ota.aspx

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: DoD, GAO, House Committee on Appropriations, OTA, other transaction authority, R&D, research, transparency

February 5, 2018 By AMK

DoD implements streamlining awards for innovative technology projects

On January 9, 2018, Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued Class Deviation 2018-O0009, designed to reduce barriers to entry for innovative entities through streamlining the awards process for research and development contracts.

This Class Deviation allows for the use of simplified acquisition procedures and excuses certain procurement obligations when DoD awards contracts and subcontracts valued at less than $7.5 million to “nontraditional defense contractors” or small businesses. The Class Deviation implements Section 873 of the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) for FY 2016, Pub. L. 114-92, as amended by Section 896 of the NDAA for FY 2017 (Pub. L. 114-328).

The Class Deviation, titled “Pilot Program for Streamlining Awards for Innovative Technology,” expands exceptions to certified cost or pricing data requirements under FAR 15.403-1(b) to include contracts or subcontracts valued at less than $7.5 million awarded to small businesses or nontraditional defense contractors.  The exceptions apply to awards pursuant to: 1) a broad agency announcement for the acquisition of basic or applied research (see FAR 35.016(b)(2)); 2) the Small Business Innovation Research (“SBIR”) Program; and 3) the Small Business Technology Transfer (“SBTT”) Program. Nontraditional defense contractors and small businesses awarded contracts or subcontracts valued at less than $7.5 million pursuant to a broad agency announcement under FAR 35.106 or the SBIR Program are also exempted from requirements for audits and records examination under FAR 52.215-2. The exceptions expire on October 1, 2020.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/01/dod-implements-streamlining-awards-for-innovative-technology-projects/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: advanced technology, class deviation, DoD, NDAA, R&D, research, SBIR/STTR, small business, streamlined acquisition process

January 18, 2018 By AMK

IMPAX program accelerates technology transition into the Navy

What if you had to wait eight years to get the great new cellphone technology your friends and neighbors were using today? That’s essentially the situation facing today’s warfighters, who must wait for long procurement cycles to bring them the latest technology.

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are working to address that challenge through a new effort – dubbed IMPAX (Innovation and Modernization Patuxent River) – that aims to accelerate the transfer of new technology to meet U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps needs. IMPAX staff members are empowered to work outside the standard acquisition process to find, develop, and prototype new technology more quickly.

IMPAX was launched in 2017 as an initiative of Rear Admiral Mark Darrah, program executive officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons at NAVAIR, by working closely with the Technology Transfer Office at NAWCAD. The first initiative with the Navy is to identify technology that will help integrate unmanned aerial vehicles into air control systems by providing miniaturized identification friend or foe (IFF) systems. IFF systems are already used in piloted aircraft, but the much smaller unmanned aircraft lack the space or power for conventional systems.

“Traditionally the Department of Defense (DoD) has been limited in the means and speed at which it could bring new technologies to the warfighter,” said Rob “Radar” Winston, a GTRI principal research engineer who directs the IMPAX program near Pax River Naval Air Station in Maryland. “Our adversaries aren’t constrained by cumbersome procurement rules and regulations. Through this effort, we want to ensure that our nation’s warfighters get the best technology in the shortest time.”

IMPAX is empowered to seek out technology from sources the government doesn’t usually work with. These can include small- and medium-sized businesses, companies that don’t traditionally work with the military or bid on billion-dollar DoD procurements. Winston and his team work on the Navy’s behalf, matching warfighter needs with technology that may already exist – or that can be developed to meet the needs.

The relationship between GTRI and NAVAIR’s Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) is known as a partnership intermediary agreement (PIA). Such agreements allow non-federal government intermediaries to coordinate and solicit non-traditional science and technology sources and to bring forth ideas from parties not usually able to contribute directly to military solutions.

“This is the first PIA specifically designed for the Navy to spin technology into naval aviation,” Winston explained. “We are looking for technology in industry, academia, and other government agencies that can be brought into the DoD very rapidly. If somebody is already working on something that the Navy needs, we can bring them together quickly. We are not just working for the government, but as a team member on the government’s behalf as a trusted partner.”

In one aspect, IMPAX team members will serve as technology scouts, scouring many sources of information to locate technologies of interest. They’ll be readily approachable, and won’t require extensive paperwork from companies and others wanting to pitch their technology for potential military applications. The overall activities will be directed by a joint GTRI/NAWCAD/NAVAIR team.

“If an individual or company has a great idea but they have never worked with the government before, that barrier to entry is very tall now,” he said. “They don’t know who to talk with, how to get involved in a program, or even how to get through the front gate of a military facility. We are going to be able to talk with these people to assess what they can contribute to the warfighter and do it all outside the gate and without the customary barriers.”

DoD agencies have their own research laboratories to help develop new technology, of course, but Winston’s group will tap other sources of innovation. For technology that’s promising but not quite ready for DoD use, IMPAX will fund brief research and development (R&D) initiatives – as short as three or four months – to determine whether a technology is worth pursuing. Pathways from there could include the traditional agency R&D laboratories.

Rob “Radar” Winston, the GTRI principal research engineer who directs the IMPAX program, discusses how the initiative will serve the Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division. (Photo Credit: Branden Camp, Georgia Tech)

“The purpose is to run these programs very quickly, and also to fail things fast with a minimum of investment in resources or time if they aren’t working out,” he said. “We can start a technology development program at any time, and it can be any technology of interest to the fleet.”

Each technology development program will be monitored by a subject matter expert and a director from GTRI. They will keep a close eye on program progress, help faltering ones, shut down ones that aren’t making progress or add team members and expertise to promising ones.

The IMPAX team will also be able to assemble packages of different technologies to meet specific needs, efforts known as mash-ups.

“Traditional programs do little to encourage the collision of ideas between different organizations, people, and technologies,” Winston said. “We’re here to help companies and organization work together to address the need with minimal barriers to innovation.”

The IMPAX initiative won’t change how major weapons systems are acquired, but could affect how those systems are updated over time to retain their effectiveness as new technologies rapidly enter the marketplace.

“IMPAX is going to enable technology that will keep these big platforms operationally relevant over a longer period of time,” Winston explained.

The IFF capability for unmanned systems is just one example of an ongoing IMPAX project. Another initiative is looking at the use of augmented reality to support maintenance and training programs. By combining 3-D computer-aided design files with mixed reality glasses, the technology could help maintainers identify a problem, locate components hidden within an aircraft, and train new personnel more quickly.

“Technology already exists for these projects, but it would take a long time to actually get them to the fleet using traditional acquisition timelines,” said Winston. “We can help develop the capability, get it to the Navy who can then get it out to the warfighter quickly. We’ll run as fast as we can with a project and give our warfighters the edge by getting the latest technology to them – today.”

Source: https://gtri.gatech.edu/newsroom/impax-program-accelerates-technology-transition-navy

Filed Under: Georgia Tech News Tagged With: Georgia Tech, GTRI, innovation, NAVAIR, Navy, R&D, research

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