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Methods when building the solicitation for effective contract formation and administration.
Tools to support preparing the solicitation package, effective communication with offerors, and receiving bids.
The Rates Only for Pricing Evaluations (ROPE) methodology alleviates the burden on vendors submitting complex pricing submissions and on contracting officers when evaluating these submissions as part of establishing an indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract or blanket purchase agreement (BPA).
Part 52 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) contains the standard provisions and clauses to be included, or incorporated by reference, in solicitations or contracts. Part 52 also prescribes procedures for incorporating, identifying, and modifying provisions and clauses in solicitations and contracts, and for using alternates.
This technique fuses or brings together multiple requirements into a single solicitation from what would normally be multiple separate solicitations for each specific requirement. The varying requirements could be the same, similar, or completely different documents combined into the single solicitation. Prior to issuing the solicitation, the acquisition team would determine the evaluation strategy for each requirement outlined.
Betterment is a process where vendors have the opportunity, in a dedicated space in their quote or proposal, to outline specific aspects of their proposed solution that exceed or enhance the government’s requirement and the value those aspects bring to the government. These Betterment promises are submitted as a stand-alone factor and are considered in the overall tradeoff analysis. These Betterment promises are captured and included in the awarded requirements document (award) replacing the former minimums of the original requirements document (solicitation).
Effective acquisition planning involves determining the milestones and lead times necessary to complete the acquisition in a timely manner. An estimate of the total procurement administrative lead time (PALT) for a procurement action is normally measured in days and often varies based on acquisition size, complexity, and contract type.
This technique allows procurement teams to build flexibility into the solicitation to allow for future conversion from one contract type to another, such as from time-and-materials to firm-fixed-price, after award.
Consider this text in your next solicitation: "As appropriate, after award, Labor Hour/Time & Material (T&M) contract line item numbers (CLINs) may be converted to Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) CLINs through mutual agreement of both parties, based on the rates (and labor categories) negotiated at the time of award."
Reimagine use of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subparts 12.6 and 13.5, to procure technology development services using commercial procedures. Acquisitions are marked by brief and goal-oriented requirement documents, short proposal times, multiple awardees and contracts with short periods of performance (base and option periods). Option periods are used as performance phases, where only successfully demonstrated solutions are carried forward.
Government buyers often want prospective offerors to learn more about requirements before submission of full proposals. Discovery is like an in-depth site visit that allows interested sources to conduct due diligence. The government may provide a reading room and access to key requirement owners for direct exchanges with individual companies. In order to get the best possible proposals, the Discovery process takes the site visit concept and makes it more interactive, letting offerors ask specific questions.
This practice allows award to the highest technically rated offer that is also found to have a reasonable price without using trade-offs between cost or price and technical.
Self-certification, or a self-scoring system, puts the burden of proving the contractor's capabilities on them instead of the Government. Bidders score themselves on one or more factors and provide documentation to support their assertions.
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An official website of the General Services Administration
