SPAWAR Industry Executive Council
Executive Summary
March 14, 2016
Topics
· Out-Briefs
o Task Order Forecasting Working Group
o SPAWAR Service Contract Performance Metrics
· Discussion items
o LPTA vs. Best Value
o Subcontractor Additions
· New Topic: Labor Category Considerations
· Potential Future Topics
Out-Brief: Task Order Forecasting Working Group
· Results of industry and government Multiple Award Contracts (MAC) working group identified the top concern/priority was the ability to forecast workload and resources on task orders for command MACs.
· SPAWAR leadership established a working group to review how task orders on command MACs for services were currently forecasted across the enterprise. The objective of the working group was to review task order forecasting across SPAWAR, synchronize with the bi-annual DoD and SPAWAR procurement forecast, and standardize content “where it makes sense”.
· The analysis and steps taken by the working group included:
o Determine total universe of Command MAC’s
o Narrowed focus to MAC’s for services
o Identify existing policies or processes on forecasting of contracts and/or task orders
§ HQ Office of Small Business Programs coordinates the forecast of procurement opportunities across SPAWAR including actions under $5M and SeaPort e task orders which is issued every May and November.
§ SSC LANT posts results of their Pre-Procurement Strategy Meetings on the SPAWAR e-commerce website.
§ SSC PAC had an established task order forecasting process with a standardized template.
· The group came to the consensus that they would leverage SSC PAC’s established task order forecasting template (see slide six in accompanying PowerPoint brief).
· SPAWAR policy on MAC’s will be revised to provide MAC awardees early insight into future requirements which will promote better potential for competition.
· This new process is effective immediately,
o on the same cycle as procurement forecasting – May and November.
o The first task order forecasting coming out in May.
· MAC prime holders will be getting information directly from contract PCO that supports that contract; no intention at this time to make this information available to subcontractors.
· Every six months SPAWAR releases forecast for new procurement opportunities for 3-5 years.
Outcome:
· SPAWAR to provide slides and notes of SIEC for Industry groups to share with membership.
· SPAWAR to notify MAC Primes of changes.
Out-Brief: SPAWAR Service Contract Performance Metrics
· The term “tripwire” has been changed to “performance metrics”.
o This action was taken to remove some of the negative connotation associated with the term.
o Performance Metrics should not be avoided but seen as those areas that require additional justification.
· In process now is a SPAWAR Note - Service Contract Performance Metric Update.
· The main change includes removing the word “tripwire” to update the terminology in the policy itself.
· In April, there will be a Commander’s Assessment of Service Requirements, which is an internal deeper dive into performance metrics with PEOs and competencies for service contracts.
· As we release new policy SPAWAR will conduct a road show with program offices so they are familiar with changes, reporting requirements, etc.
· An increase of bridge contracting action shows that we have not forecasted correctly. A lot of bridges in an indicator of issue in process.
Outcome:
· Industry groups to review slides three and four in the accompanying PowerPoint to view a list of specific changes to performance metrics for both pre and post award.
· Competitive One Bids- industry groups to provide feedback when they see RFPs that look to be a Competitive One Bid; how to make RFP more competitive.
Discussion items: LPTA vs. Best Value
· SPAWAR 2.0 issued a data call across the command to understand the extent to which Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) vs. Best Value are awarded.
· Generally SPAWAR does not do a lot of LPTA awards across the command; haven’t seen a case where LPTA was misapplied.
· Very rarely award to lowest price, lowest acceptable rated offer. Tendency is to award somewhere in the middle or top of the pack. There is a reasonable spread across the spectrum.
· There is a perception in industry that we are behaving in an LPTA-like way when doing a Best Value source selection. Government needs to share information to clarify misconceptions.
Outcome:
· SPAWAR 2.0 to provide analysis of command LPTA vs Best Value break down to SIEC members and through industry group speaking opportunities.
Discussion items: Subcontractor Additions
· SPAWAR conducted an informal inquiry of contracting officers and compiled a non-statistical sample of data on how long subcontractor add-ons are taking:
o HQ: Average of 3 - 5 business days; rarely any more than 2 weeks
o SSC PAC: Average of 1 – 2 weeks; depending on task-order type
o SSC LANT: Average of 14 days; some took one day, others that required more information or entailed back and forth with the Prime contractor took 2 - 4 weeks
· Performance Metric reinforces compliance with FAR 52.444-2 regarding Consent to Subcontracts, which requires the prime contractor notify the Contracting Officer "reasonably in advance of placing a subcontract or modification thereof for which consent is required".
· These statistics were based on the date the request was received by contracts. It does not account for how long it might take a program office to submit the subcontractor add-on request.
· What is the timeline that SPAWAR used determine the time it takes for subcontractor add-on? When does industry consider the start of an add-on? Industry believes add-ons generally take longer than what is reported above.
Outcome:
· SSC Atlantic to review why subcontractor additions can take up to 2-4 weeks.
· Industry groups to determine their timeline for add-ons to compare with how SPAWAR tracks them.
New Topic: Labor Category Considerations
· A labor category is the government estimate on hours needed to support a performance work statement. Together they are issued to create perimeters on how industry would respond to solicitation.
· Labor categories are not defined and categorized in a consistent way. Significant differences across program offices and technical codes offices.
· In absence of robust definitions for labor categories, industry will air on the side of the more economic option (i.e. more junior personnel).
· Variance between bid and execution – The difference in what is being solicited and what is being executed. Industry responds to what the government requires in the RFP, which often is different in level of expertise than what they need in task execution.
· Over managing the fee could make government lose out on high-end talent.
· Fee pool is a separate CLIN so both government and industry does not have access to cost savings.
· In the case study presented, the government designed a procurement that doesn’t meet execution requirements from a seniority/level of expertise perspective. Compromises had to be made to meet the ceiling and that could lead to not delivering what is actually required.
· Bottom line is standardized labor categories across SPAWAR procurements with much greater fidelity will allow Program Managers to better define what they want and will allow contractors to bid to the actual requirement not the lowest common denominator.
· This should also help with assessment of proposals and the ability of the government to compare apples to apples.
· But to be effective, verification of positions bid has to be part of government assessment to ensure the staffing solution meets the LCAT requirements solicited.
Outcome:
As a working group, industry will:
· Evaluate the benefit of standardized LCAT descriptions for Jr., Mid., Sr. level requirements by functional area
· Study the correlation between minimum LCAT descriptions and execution year tripwire variance
· Evaluate the impact of using “Fee Conversion Clause” on Seaport-e contracts, to include ability to access Sr. level talent and ability to liquidate fee CLIN
Potential Future SIEC Topics
· What are we doing that is keeping us from moving fast? How do we work together to become more innovative?
· Industry working groups can provide recommendations for technical areas that related to the business from strategic prospective:
o Patch management - how can we do it better/faster
o C4I configuration management - how do we drive down the configurations and manage them
o How do we push more testing into the manufacturing process; equipment more fully configured when delivered?
o How do we make labs flexible enough to accommodate all of the different configurations?
o What better automated tools are available / what do we need / what do we not know we need?
o Cyber Security - how do we operate our networks better to improve CS?
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Industry Attendance
Eric Lester
NDIA San Diego
Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Jim Lasswell
NDIA San Diego
President and CEO, Indus Technology
Trevor Bender
AFCEA San Diego
Manager, Cypher Analytics
Bryan Lopez
AFCEA San Diego
Intrepid Initiatives LLC
Jamie Moraga
San Diego Military Advisory Council
President and CEO, intelliSolutions, Inc
Earl Wederbrook
San Diego Military Advisory Council
Director of Business Development, Raytheon
Brick Nelson
San Diego Military Advisory Council
Corporate Lead Executive, Northrop Grumman Corporation
David Hamburger
Charleston Defense Contractors Association
President and CEO, Evolve-Tec LLC
Sean Barr
San Diego Economic Development Council
Floyd Pinkney
San Diego Economic Development Council
Director of Business Development, Navy C4ISR, BAE Systems
SPAWAR Attendance
RADM Dave Lewis
Commander, SPAWAR
Pat Sullivan
Executive Director, SPAWAR
John Pope, Executive Director, PEO C4I
RDML John Neagley
Deputy Commander Fleet Readiness , SPAWAR
Nancy Gunderson
Director of Contracts, SPAWAR
Steve Dunn
Chief Management Officer, SPAWAR
CAPT Kurt Rothenhaus
Commanding Officer, SSC Pacific
Carmela Keeney
Executive Director, SSC Pacific
Craig Madsen
Acquisition and Program Management National Competency Lead, SPAWAR
Faye Esaias, Director, SPAWAR Office of Small Business Programs
Kyle Turco, Chief of Staff, PEO C4I
Victor Popik, PEO SUBS PMS 485
Conference Line:
CAPT Scott Heller, Commanding Officer, SSC Atlantic
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