More information on the finalist
Excellence in Acquisition Workforce Management Award 2006
Finalist: Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Acquisition Management
Acquisition Training and Purchase Card Service Center
Innovative Support of EPA's Acquisition Mission
The Acquisition Training and Purchase Card Service Center (ATPCSC) team philosophy is: Together Everyone Achieves More - TEAM. The collaboration of the 11 members of ATPCSC has resulted in a myriad of support for the acquisition goals and initiatives of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Through the team's numerous projects EPA's acquisition community, as well as their external customers, have reaped benefits.
Two projects - the design of a support network and the development of training courses - demonstrate this team's support of their agency's acquisition mission. A major EPA initiative has been to create an infrastructure that supports Simplified Acquisition Contracting Officers (SACOs), who purchase goods and services for laboratories in geographically remote regions. The ATPCSC designed a support network that brought SACOs into EPA's acquisition mainstream. The network includes regular meetings to discuss common acquisition issues, a structure for senior contracting officers to serve as technical advisors and liaisons, a way to provide technical guidance and oversight, and training sessions and conferences.
This critical support to SACOs has resulted in many significant mission benefits, including: 1) better emissions control technologies; 2) stronger strategies to protect and restore water quality; and 3) solid research into assessing the risks to humans and ecosystems of various chemical exposures. The team also sponsors and coordinates an annual SACO conference to bring together these contracting officers and their supervisors, to address and support the day-to day challenges of working in remote laboratories, to share best practices with representatives and advisors of the Office of Acquisition Management (OAM), and to receive training on selected procurement topics.
EPA's acquisition training policy requires all Contracting Officer Technical Representatives (COTRs) to complete a basic three-day course prior to appointment as a COTR, as well as a one-day refresher course every three years. In support of this policy, the ATPCSC team designed an agency-specific COTR training course, which provides training to nearly 8,000 employees who constitute EPA's acquisition community. The team updates, coordinates, and conducts this technical training, which has been offered to approximately 1,500 employees in Fiscal Year 2006.
Business Practices That Support an Efficient and Effective EPA Workforce
ATPCSC encourages a productive business approach to acquisitions in two additional ways: 1) they introduced a new payment process, and 2) they redesigned their internal acquisition webpage, which includes a link that allows employees to track their own acquisitions training records. In the past, EPA's training officers were required to undergo a complicated payment process when paying for training in excess of the micro-purchase threshold. With the ever-present goal of improving customer service, the Office of Acquisition Management partnered with the Office of Human Resources (OHR) to enable Agency training officers - for the very first time - to use EPA purchase cards to pay for this training. By leveraging the technology of the commercial credit card industry, this innovative approach has resulted in significant streamlining as it provides enhanced customer service.
While the purchase card has been used for many years to pay for training under $2,500, until recently, the card was not a tool for the payment of training in excess of the micro-purchase threshold. This new process of allowing training officers to pay for training using the purchase card has been so successful that ATPCSC and OHR recently expanded it to include training for program officers as well.
In addition, ATPCSC has led the redesign of EPA's internal Acquisition Training Web Page (ATWP), to give it a new look and feel and be more user-friendly. The new page links to the Acquisition Training System for Nationwide Acquisition Training Schedules, which eliminates the need to manually develop and maintain a separate training schedule for publication. This is one of the final steps to making on-line course registration a reality for all EPA personnel.
Until this year, the Office of Acquisition Management was operating an Acquisition Training System (ATS) database using 1990's technology to publicize course offerings, record attendance, and print course completion certificates. A collaborative effort among the ATPCSC, OAM's Information Technology Service Center (ITSC), administrative staff, and system users was launched to develop an easy-to-use Lotus Notes-based Acquisition Training System that allows individuals to track their own OAM-sponsored acquisition training records. The new, improved ATS allows EPA employees to view and print their OAM training transcripts from a link on the ATWP. This has eliminated the need to print and distribute course completion certificates - a time- and cost-saving measure.
Human Capital Strategic Plans That Support EPA's Short- and Long-term Goals
The ATPCSC was a key contributor to the governmentwide Human Capital Working Group. The purpose of this working group is to assist the Chief Acquisition Officers Council to understand the needs of the current and future contracting workforce. This group researched the current state of the GS-1102 contracting series and identified pressures and trends that will shape the definition of the future workforce. This group provided information and tools that will help agencies conduct detailed skill assessments to plan for this future workforce. The report, issued by the group, explores the skills needed today to accomplish the acquisition mission, discusses the size and distribution of the contracting workforce across agencies, identifies skills needed for five years into the future, and provides information to managers to facilitate agency workforce assessments. Much of the data analysis for this report was performed by ATPCSC staff. The Office of Management and Budget, Office of Federal Procurement Policy staff contacted EPA's Senior Procurement Executive personally to express appreciation for the role of the ATPCSC staff on this important working group.