Acquisition Team “US Government and Contractor” One Team One Mission

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Acquisition Team “US Government and Contractor” One Team One Mission

Understanding how an Acquisition Team operates could position your company for greater contracts when doing business with the Federal Government.

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 1 clearly defines the acquisition team as all participants in government acquisition including not only the representatives of technical, supply, and procurement, but also the customers they serve and the contractors who provide the products and services. You as a Contractor is part of the government acquisition team, the more you know about your team’s roles and responsibilities, including yours, you will be better suited for growing your business in the federal government market. The acquisition team should be working together toward a common goal not toward individual achievements. The only way you would know what the common goal is to interact with the acquisition team. You’re probably asking how do I interact with the acquisition team when I don’t know who’s on the team.

Please allow me to identify your acquisition team for most federal government agencies

·         Contracting Officer

·         Contract Specialist

·         General Counsel

·         Small Business Advocate

·         Competition Advocate

·         Contracting Officer Representative

·         Customers

·         Contractor providing the Goods or Services

It is important that team members understand their roles and responsibilities – where specific duties are assigned, how performance measures and milestones are developed and that members are held accountable for individual work products. The success of many companies doing business with the federal government establish a similar acquisition team to support their efforts, ensuring that their team operate in a similar format as the US Government operates.

All members of a Acquisition Team should embrace a framework of collaborative partnering and remove any “US” vs “Them” methods from the operating environment. The Acquisition Team consist of the Government and the Contractor, let’s work together to accomplish the task.   

 

Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA)

 

The Challenge of Applying the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) Process to the Procurement of Complex Services

When the Government used LPTA, they should be required to define Technically Acceptable to ensure needed quality:
Industry has expressed concerns about the use of Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA) selection criteria that essentially default to the lowest price bidder, independent of quality. Where LPTA is used, the Department needs to define TA appropriately to ensure adequate quality.

Government are moving to increased reliance on the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection method.1 Under defined circumstances, the LPTA process can control costs and result in best value for the Government. But the LPTA process, which can eliminate agency discretion to value technical and other non-cost superiority, is not appropriate for all acquisitions. Within the context of professional services, even under the best of circumstances, the LPTA method creates risks that need to be mitigated by a precisely drafted solicitation and a technically rigorous, carefully managed proposal evaluation process.

Many Contractor’s would recommend that solicitations for complex professional services avoid using the LPTA source selection process. Such solicitations should instead adopt a classic best-value/cost-technical tradeoff approach to afford the Government flexibility to value technical superiority relative to potential cost savings.

Many of the government proposal evaluators are pushing back on the use of lowest price, technically acceptable (LPTA) evaluation criteria—and for good reason. They are now learning that this evaluation criteria can limit their ability to exercise reasonable judgment in the evaluation process and may result in contracts awarded to companies that are clearly inferior and have less qualified offerings compared to others in the competition.

Here are two instances where the use of LPTA evaluation criteria backfired on the government decision-makers:

1.   Superior value versus price

2.   Past performance and performance risk