risk | The Contracting Education Academy

March 24, 2020 By cs

GSA’s e-commerce initiative strained by new protests, questions over supply chain risks

There was a flurry of lawmakers seemingly troubled, disappointed and disturbed about the lack of governmentwide progress to move to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.

While the reality is most of the lawmakers probably had never heard of EIS until their staff explained to them 10 minutes before the hearing started that it’s a way for agencies to modernize their voice, video and data services, the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations created at least an newsworthy façade last week.

The hearing also ferreted out a host of other valuable news nuggets about several of the General Services Administration’s technology services.

As one never to let a good almost 90-minute hearing go to waste, the subcommittee pressed GSA on the status and future of its e-commerce platform initiative.

About an hour into the hearing, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., ranking member of the subcommittee and the incoming chief of staff for President Donald Trump, asked what seemed like a simple question about GSA’s e-commerce platform initiative.

“Are you going to have the two awardees by the end of the month?” Meadows asked.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/03/gsas-e-commerce-initiative-strained-by-new-protests-questions-over-supply-chain-risks/

March 9, 2020 By cs

HHS’ shutdown of assisted acquisition services remains painful, wasteful

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

With its decision to end its assisted acquisition services through its Program Support Center, HHS is putting more than $1 billion in contracts at risk. It’s hanging large and small agencies out to dry — ranging from the Defense Department to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Office of Special Counsel — by canceling contracts and giving them little time to prepare for the changes. And it is withholding payment to potentially hundreds of small and large contractors, putting some at risk of closing down or facing employee layoffs and additional contract costs.

At the same time, HHS is paying tens of thousands of dollars in prompt payment penalties to those same contractors for avoidable mistakes, inching ever closer to what experts would call waste and abuse.

“Since the beginning, HHS PSC was inflicting pain on themselves,” said Ron Robinson, a former program manager for Copper River Technologies, which provided contract support and financial analyst services until December when PSC ended its three-year contract two years early. “It is horrible the way HHS has handled this. They should be held accountable, and it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to. There wasn’t communication. There was a lack of transparency. You see that time and again with them suspending warrants and putting four people on administrative leave without telling them why.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/03/hhs-shutdown-of-assisted-acquisition-services-remains-painful-wasteful/

February 20, 2020 By cs

To modernize, push for smaller procurements

Sometimes baby steps make sense.

The government is all about investing heavily in technologies like cloud and artificial intelligence. With these massive efforts come massive contracts, but is that necessarily the best way to innovate?

Many modernization efforts have been lackluster because of the way procurements have been structured. Massive, multibillion-dollar contracts spanning years with the same vendor means the government has put all their eggs in one basket; this has led to issues with integrating and implementing these “innovative” procurements. These mammoth contracts open the doors to legal disputes, among other bottlenecks to implementation, illustrated best in the legal battle over the Defense Department’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract.

Why Big Procurements Aren’t Always Better

Big contracts don’t set the government up for success. Agencies invest millions of dollars without the ability to test the vendor and the technology. Multiyear contracts allow few options for agile pivoting, in case something doesn’t work out and the mission needs to change directions.

Smaller procurements are more flexible and agile, and they also allow for increased competition, which leads to better solutions that are more impactful for government agencies. In addition, when contracts are narrow at a smaller scale, it diminishes the risk of a vendor protesting, which stops the entire project and pulls you into court. Thoughtfully planning smaller procurements can save the protest headache that will suck time and money away from your mission into a wearying process with a side effect of unsavory headlines.

Big contracts also can lead the government to vendor lock, which is problematic for a variety of reasons. When an agency is beholden to one vendor, system integration, maintenance, and future work become nearly impossible. (Big contracts can lead to vendor lock, which results in a lot of the IP struggles we see today.)

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2020/02/modernize-push-smaller-procurements/162869/

February 6, 2020 By cs

Pentagon’s number-two officer vows to fix software acquisition ‘nightmare’

The new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Defense Department needs to fix its requirements processes — not just its acquisition procedures — if it’s going to make real progress toward buying and building software as quickly as Silicon Valley does.

And as of now, according to Gen. John Hyten, the process is a “nightmare across the board.”

At the suggestion of the Defense Innovation Board, Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment has promised to create a software-specific acquisition pathway for DoD systems.

But Hyten told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that changing DoD’s buying procedures won’t solve the problem if it’s still stuck with a requirements process that takes too long, and was built for tanks and aircraft carriers.

In his capacity as the chairman of Joint Requirements Oversight Council, Hyten is largely in control of that process — known as the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). He believes it’s stuck in the industrial age.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/01/pentagons-number-two-officer-vows-to-fix-software-acquisition-nightmare/

December 12, 2019 By cs

GAO says DoD’s fraud assessment efforts should include examination of contractor ownership

Some companies doing business with the Defense Department have opaque ownership structures that may conceal who owns, controls, or benefits from the company.

This GAO illustration depicts how DoD’s use of an ineligible foreign manufacturer — that illegally exported sensitive military data and provided defective and nonconforming parts — led to the grounding of at least 47 U.S. fighter aircraft.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently identified fraud and national security risks to DoD from opaque ownership such as ineligible contractors receiving contracts and foreign firms receiving sensitive information through U.S.-based companies.

These risks, identified through GAO’s review of 32 adjudicated cases, include price inflation through multiple companies owned by the same entity to falsely create the appearance of competition, contractors receiving contracts they were not eligible to receive, and a foreign manufacturer receiving sensitive information or producing faulty equipment through a U.S.-based company.

For example, one case involved an ineligible foreign manufacturer that illegally exported sensitive military data and provided defective and nonconforming parts that led to the grounding of at least 47 fighter aircraft.

The GAO reports that DoD has taken some steps that could address some of the risks related to contractor ownership in the procurement process but has not yet assessed these risks across the department. DoD, in coordination with other agencies, revised the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) in 2014 to require contractors to self-report some ownership information. In addition, DoD has taken steps to identify and use ownership information — for example, as part of its supply-chain risk analysis when acquiring critical components. DoD has also begun a department-wide fraud risk management program but, according to GAO, it has neither assessed risks of contractor ownership across the department nor identified risks posed by contractor ownership as a specific area for assessment.

GAO contends that assessing risks arising from contractor ownership would allow DoD to take a strategic approach to identifying and managing these risks, make informed decisions on how to best use its resources, and evaluate its existing control activities to ensure they effectively respond to these risks.

Keep reading this GAO report summary at: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-106#summary

There was a flurry of lawmakers seemingly troubled, disappointed and disturbed about the lack of governmentwide progress to move to the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

Sometimes baby steps make sense.

The new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Defense Department needs to fix its requirements processes — not just its acquisition procedures — if it’s going to make real progress toward buying and building software as quickly as Silicon Valley does.

Some companies doing business with the Defense Department have opaque ownership structures that may conceal who owns, controls, or benefits from the company.

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