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January 25, 2021 By cs

GSA introduces vendor risk assessment program in draft solicitation

The General Services Administration could soon start requiring on-site assessments of certain federal contractors under a new program to scrutinize risks to the supply chain. 

Tucked into the draft of a new governmentwide acquisition vehicle for information technology services called Polaris is language describing a tool to “identify, assess and monitor supply chain risks of critical vendors.”  It would use classified and unclassified sources.

GSA said once the tool it’s developing—referred to as the Vendor Risk Assessment Program — is complete, “the contractor agrees the government may, at its own discretion, perform audits of supply chain risk processes or events,” adding, “on site assessments may be required.”

The Vendor Risk Assessment Program first appeared online in a Sept. 2017 blogpost by GSA’s Shon Lyublanovits describing plans to address risks to the supply chain of the government’s information and communications technology. Around that time, agencies would have been busy working to remove Kaspersky software from their systems.  And GSA was engaged in a series of pilots toward a service that would be shared across the government to uncover businesses’ due diligence, including for cybersecurity concerns.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2021/01/gsa-introduces-vendor-risk-assessment-program-draft-solicitation/171289/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cybersecurity, cyberthreat, GSA, information technology, risk, risk assessment, security, security threat, supply chain, supply chain security, Vendor Risk Assessment Program

October 13, 2020 By cs

Combat leaders go through hell to learn about risk … the acquisition corps should do the same

One reason the ‘culture of innovation’ hasn’t taken proper hold at the Pentagon is that its buyers aren’t trained over and over to weigh uncertainties.

Why does the Pentagon remain unable to properly exploit the opportunities afforded by advances in technology and other fields?

It’s not for lack of exhortation: a long list of Defense leaders, up to and including the current secretary, has urged the Department’s people to innovate, to take risks.

They don’t know how.

This is no slur on today’s acquisition corps, which is full of bright, hard-working people. But making good judgments in the face of risk is hard. It involves a complex web of decisions, actions and counteractions that often spiral well beyond the scope of the original task. The higher the stakes, the tougher risk management becomes. The same is true of combat — which is exactly why the military insists that its combat leaders train and study and review and practice, over and over again, in ever-more complex scenarios, so that they are as ready as possible to handle real risk.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/09/combat-leaders-go-through-hell-learn-about-risk-acquisition-corps-should-do-same/168543/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition reform, acquisition workforce, DoD, innovation, judgement, Pentagon, procurement reform, risk, risk management

September 23, 2020 By cs

18F says 6 core concepts can reduce risk in federal tech projects

The new ‘De-risking Government Technology Field Guide’ looks to educate officials on how to merge modern software design with traditional government bureaucracy.
Click on image above to download the Field Guide.

Teams of technology, process and procurement experts with the Technology Transformation Service have published a 128-page guidebook outlining best practices for technology projects—federal, state or local—in an attempt to “de-risk” one of the most failure-prone areas of government.

Last week, 18F — the internal tech consultancy housed in the General Services Administration’s TTS — in conjunction with their colleagues at 10x, released the “De-risking Government Technology Field Guide” with specific advice on how agencies can use human-centered design, agile development and modular contracting to significantly lower the risk of producing a substandard or unusable product.

“Only 13% of large government software projects are successful,” the guide states, citing statistics from The Standish Group analyzing projects in the U.S. and Europe valued at more than $6 million. “Modern software development practices reduce that risk by delivering working code every few weeks and getting feedback from end users to ensure that the product meets their needs.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/09/18f-says-6-core-concepts-can-reduce-risk-federal-tech-projects/168490/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: 10x, 18F, acquisition planning, acquisition reform, agile, contract planning, GSA, IT, procurement reform, risk, technology

September 3, 2020 By cs

Agencies achieving frictionless acquisition in variety of ways

Years of criticism directed at federal agencies has created a culture of risk aversion. That’s something which Soraya Correa, Department of Homeland Security chief procurement officer, said needs to change.

“We’ve got to allow people to do things differently, to try new [things], and so take those chances,” she said Tuesday. “And we the leadership in this profession and across all the professions need to support our people a little bit better to make them feel that confidence that they can take some calculated risks and move the ball forward.”

Correa was part of the Accelerating Acquisition in the Dynamic Workplace webinar, sponsored by FedInsider, which gathered agency acquisition leaders to talk about inefficiencies in federal procurement and what they would like to be done differently.

One of Correa’s initiatives, DHS’ Procurement Innovation Lab, has set an example of creating “safe spaces” for innovation. Its PIL boot camp has proved popular with other agencies and DHS  and its components have awarded a cumulative 52 PIL procurement projects from fiscal 2015, when the lab started, to 2019, according to the agency.

Several speakers referenced the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting Systems (CPARS), an electronic workflow that reports and rates contractor performance, at the General Services Administration. Correa said DHS is championing artificial intelligence to track past performance with CPARS data, but the system is “daunting.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2020/08/agencies-achieving-frictionless-acquisition-in-variety-of-ways/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: CPARS, DHS, EPA, frictionless acquisition, GSA, Procurement Innovation Lab, risk, risk averse

April 8, 2020 By cs

What are prototypes?

There is considerable excitement, interest, attention, angst and what have you in Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisitions about new programs’ use of prototypes, prototyping, and rapid prototyping.
In June 1940, with World War II on the horizon, the U.S. Army solicited bids from 135 automakers for a 1/4 ton “light reconnaissance vehicle” tailored to Army specifications. Only three companies responded — Bantam, Willys, and Ford — but, within a year’s time they collectively produced the template for the vehicle known worldwide as the “jeep.” — Source: Jeep.com

There also are some serious workforce misconceptions about what prototypes are and, most important, what they are not.  Let us provide some context and expectation management about prototyping and prototypes as increasingly employed in early program stages.

Prototyping Defense Systems

The concept of prototyping defense systems is not new. The Army required delivery of prototype vehicles (called Pilot Models prior to World War II) for a competition that eventually resulted in the venerable “Jeep” vehicle. The prototypes delivered for that program in 1940 — the “1/4 ton, 4×4 utility trucks” — bear only a general resemblance to the Willys MBs and Ford GPWs that were mass-produced as the standard Jeep design during the war. There were significant requirements changes (such as vehicle weight) and redesigning to move the Pilot Models to a producible wartime configuration. Fast forward to a more recent example, the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program also required delivery of two prototype aircraft from each competitor for a fly-off to decide the winner. Those two prototype aircraft, the YF-22 and YF-23, were evaluated by the Air Force and the YF-22 team was selected and proceeded to design and deliver the present-day F-22A.

So then what exactly is a prototype? Is the Bantam Reconnaissance Car the same as a Jeep, or the YF-22 the same as an F-22A? Not exactly. Prototyping is a part — but not the end state — of the design process. A prototype, or “first type” is the preliminary type, form, or instance of a system or system element that serves as a model for what comes later. Contractors, industry, and research organizations develop prototypes for many reasons. Prototypes are used to reduce technical risk, validate designs or cost estimates, evaluate manufacturing processes, refine requirements, or even explore new operational concepts. Risk reduction prototypes materially decrease Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) risk at an acceptable cost. They can be a system such as the YF-22, or can focus on subsystems or components.

Prototypes may not, and in most cases, do not, have all the features or capabilities of the fully designed system. They may not need to have all the features of the final system. Predominantly they are used to demonstrate the ability to achieve certain critical performance parameters, validate computer models or explore improved manufacturing processes. Prototypes are viewed as only a “temporary” step or to serve a specific purpose in the full design process. After they are fabricated, the design process continues evolving until the completed system is verified. Competitive prototypes are produced by two or more companies or teams competing for a contract award. The enduring problem with competitive prototypes, as many industry officials and financial analysts see it, is that the companies are required to spend huge sums of money upfront without any guarantees that they will be able to recoup their investments. So when they explore prototyping, companies limit their work to fabricating a system with the key features necessary to win a contract to proceed to the next acquisition phase.

Pre-Prototyping

Considerable design work is required before a prototype can even be constructed. The systems engineering process already is fully under way: Requirements generation and analysis, architecture design, functional baseline determinations — all must be done before even a prototype design can be communicated to a group that will fabricate the prototype. This process involves in-depth modeling and simulation in particular or what we now refer to as Digital Engineering. Design changes, particularly to facilitate manufacturing, are a normal outgrowth of the prototyping process. Prototypes basically are things you learn from, not things you go to war with.

In the case of the ATF, the Air Force wanted demonstration of some key features through the prototype delivery and subsequent flight evaluations. Those features were stealth, super-cruise (ability to fly above Mach 1 without using an afterburner), maneuverability, handling qualities, and the ability to serve as test-beds for two different prototype engines. Conversely, there were many features that the prototype ATFs were not demonstrating, such as avionics maturity. These first aircraft were constructed with only enough avionics to ensure safety of flight. They did not incorporate fully mature and integrated avionics, but they didn’t need to do so at that point in the design process. The prototypes delivered to the Air Force were sufficient, as intended, for selecting a design team to proceed into EMD.

Small Subsystems

How does prototyping actually work in practice for smaller subsystems? During my private-sector university research days, I led a team working on a design for a small internal-combustion engine for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that would run on so-called “heavy fuel” or JP-8. The Army was looking for a heavy-fuel engine to replace the 38-horsepower (hp) gasoline power plant on the Shadow UAV. Under a grant from the Army Research Lab, my research team set about to find such an engine—or see if one could be modified to meet the Army requirements.

When no suitable off-the-shelf replacement engine could be found, we partnered with a small company that had an idea for converting small internal combustion engines from operating on gasoline to heavy fuel but had not yet proven the concept. The initial phase of our research was focused on the key Army requirement of demonstrating heavy fuel operation on an engine in the same power class as the existing engine. We selected an existing 20-hp, two-cylinder aircraft engine that we felt was adequate to use as a prototype testbed to validate the company’s conversion process from gasoline to JP-8. If that initial demonstration succeeded, we planned to scale up the conversion to a larger, four-cylinder prototype version. The conversion parts were designed, fabricated, and installed on the 20-hp version at the same time an engine test stand/test cell was developed and constructed. My team demonstrated JP-8 heavy fuel operation on the 20-hp engine using the conversion design. We then migrated the concept to the four-cylinder, 40-hp prototype and again validated the heavy fuel operation and sufficient engine power for this to be considered as a suitable candidate replacement for the existing Shadow engine.

Although the two prototyping efforts were successful in the two key areas that the Army focused on, there were many other important design features and requirements we were not then able to explore during this early risk-reduction prototyping phase of the program. For example, while operating our test engines, our team experienced the difficulty of trying to tune four independent carburetors on the cylinders and began conceptual design of a fuel injection system that would replace the carburetors.

Limitations

There were other limitations to what we could do with our prototypes. During further engine testing we experienced a failure of the main engine bearings due to the different orientation of the engine on a UAV versus a manned aircraft. We had no opportunity to do any detailed platform integration or installed performance testing with the Shadow itself, which would be an important next step after demonstrating the stand-alone engine performance. Important design considerations such as engine aerodynamic cooling, low-temperature or high-altitude performance could not be tested in our test cell.

We did not do any characterization of the acoustic or infrared signature of the modified engine. During testing, we realized extra warm-up and start time would be required by the use of heavy fuel intended for turbine or compression-ignition engines. Although we were able to achieve the required engine operation time to pass a Federal Aviation Administration qualification test specified by the Army, there was no opportunity to evaluate the long-term reliability and maintainability of the engine and propeller in field conditions. Also no consideration was given to production of the future engine or eventual unit cost.

None of these system features and attributes were settled through the early prototyping, nor was that intended. Instead these requirements could be characterized or optimized only by system-level platform integration and a complete design and verification process. Our engine prototypes did their job as intended — they demonstrated key system capabilities — but they were only an intermediate step to a final design. The prototypes as we operated them would never be accepted as the configuration of the completed engine design. They were truly the first of their type, and much more work lay ahead.

Early Decision-Making

So what are the full-up system articles used for development test and verification at the end of EMD?  They are not, in the true sense, “prototypes.” They are, in fact, full-up test articles that have all the features of the system design, but may not necessarily be made using mature production processes. These systems go by several names: qualification test articles, first articles, engineering development models, or EMD test articles. They are much more than prototypes and calling them that is a bit of a misnomer.  As shown with previous examples, prototypes were used to demonstrate some, but not all, system requirements. In contrast, these EMD test articles must, by definition, meet all the requirements of the specification(s) in order to verify the final system design.  In a perfect world, they would be made on the same line as the production articles, but they need not be.  The key condition is that they need to work like production articles to be verified against the specification. The next step after verification is the fabrication of Low Rate Initial Production articles to be used for operational test.  Those must, also by definition, be production representative.

Prototyping and competitive prototyping are very useful tools in design and acquisition, particularly for early decision making, but there are many other tools in the system-development process.


The author of this article, which first appeared in the March-April issue of Defense Acquisition magazine, is Brian Duddy, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, now a professor of Program Management at the Defense Acquisition University, where he teaches Program Management and Systems Engineering.  The author can be contacted at Brian.Duddy@dau.edu.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition workforce, DoD, Jeep, prototype, prototyping, rapid prototyping, risk, system development and demonstration, UAV

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