FIGURE 1
major defense contractors possess the nec- essary capabilities, still warrant approval from the ACC-supporting small business office. When the customer’s requirements unquestionably exceed the capability of small businesses, contracting officers can request an individual waiver for a solicitation. Completing a waiver while developing the base solicitation elimi- nates the need to revisit small business office compliance reviews throughout the task or delivery order process, and eases the workload on the sole small business representative servicing the respective ACC component. Obtaining a small busi- ness waiver when applicable can reduce order cycle time by three days to two weeks or more.
WORKLOAD AFFECTS PROCESS TIME
While the dollar value of contract actions failed to evince a statistically significant impact on order process time, the authors’ research indicated that workload affects the length of time to complete a task or delivery order. As the number of work-in-process (WIP) actions increases— shown by the count of orders processed in a given month—so does the average cycle time for those actions. (SOURCE: ACC-APG)
PROCESS REDUNDANCIES Te task and delivery order process is replete with redundancies, many of which can be addressed at the local level. An acquisition strategy is required for all contract actions estimated at $10 million or more. If a strategy is not done on the base contract, one must be completed for every subsequent task or delivery order. Developing an acquisition strategy, which outlines acquisition objectives, resourc- ing constraints, evaluation metrics and project-critical milestones, is a significant undertaking. Contracting officers are often tasked with conducting their own research and coordinating with program managers and other third parties to suc- cessfully define these elements and prepare a contract action for initiation. While it may seem expedient to bypass this step during the development of a base contract,
creating the acquisition strategy at the base saves time and has the added benefit of reducing future workload. Completing an acquisition strategy for each individual order can significantly increase process lead time, adding anywhere from 10 to 45 days for each order.
Contracts not prepriced in the base award are negotiated each time a task or delivery order is prepared. Before the contracting officer can certify cost or pricing data, the data require consent from the customer, who, in turn, must obtain these par- ticulars from the contractor. Prepricing, which is in essence agreeing to terms in the base contract, shaves from 15 to 60 days off the order process.
Even requirements of a materially tech- nical or sensitive nature, for which only
Incorporating options into task or deliv- ery orders can expedite the process for subsequent orders, as the process to exer- cise an option has seven steps typically completed in approximately 30 days, as opposed to the 20-plus-step baseline process that takes between 100 to 270 days to award. Te expedited procedure facilitates staff continuity and promotes streamlining of the overarching process by eliminating work-in-process inventory at needless steps. Figure 2 on Page 102 com- pares the use of options to the standard order process.
WHAT DEFINES ACTIONABLE? A pervasive lack of consensus exists among process participants as to what comprises an actionable requirements packet, legally and sufficiently. Some contracting offi- cers and contract specialists wait until customers submit complete, error-free requirements packages before further processing contract documents. However, this behavior is not limited to contracting officers or contract specialists.
Te complexity of contract actions is often compounded by their lengthy life spans
ASC.ARMY.MIL 101
CONTRACTING
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