Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Accept no imitations: Contractor cannot recover for claim based on brand name products

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When a contractor delivers goods to the government that do not conform to the precise requirements of the contract, the results are usually . . . not good.  When the agency specifies certain products in the contract, the contractor should plan to satisfy the exact specifications (or prepare to suffer the consequences).

A straightforward example arose recently on a GSA construction contract.  The contract called for the installation of products from specifically named manufactures (with limited sources identified).  The contract also expressly called out that the agency would not permit substitutions for those named products.

After award, the contractor proposed substitutions for what it considered “equivalent” products from a manufacturer that did not appear on the agency’s approved source list.  The agency declined to consider the contractor’s requested exceptions.

The contractor wisely proceeded to provide the brand name products – but also filed claims seeking the excess costs associated with those products (as compared to the lower-priced equivalents that it suggested to the agency).  The contractor argued that the agency improperly rejected the substitution.

Not surprisingly, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals granted the agency’s motion to dismiss.  The Board found that the contract language clearly did not provide for substitutions – and that GSA did not breach the contract by refusing to consider the contractor’s proposed equivalents.

Continue reading at:  Fox Rothschild

FedBizOpps will be gone before the end of the year

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The Federal Business Opportunities, or FedBizOpps, website will be shutting down before the end of 2019, as the comprehensive database of government contracting opportunities moves to a new location.

By the end of next year, 10 acquisition-focused websites managed by the General Services Administration will be merged together under the new SAM.gov.  Those sites include FedBizOpps, as well as the current System for Award Management, or SAM; the Federal Procurement Data System, FPDS; the grants site Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, CFDA; Wage Determinations Online, WDOL; Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System, eSRS; the past performance databases, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, FAPIIS; Contractor Performance Assessment Reports System, CPARS; and Past Performance Information Retrieval System, PPIRS; and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, FFATA.

“Once the modernization is complete, we will have one homepage with a single sign-on, one powerful search tool, one robust reporting tool and one workspace where users can access the information and tools they need to make, receive and manage federal awards,” according to the new SAM.gov, which is currently in beta.

Three sites have already made the jump: CFDA, WDOL and SAM. The PPIRS site was decommissioned, as its functionality is covered by CPARS.

FedBizOpps is scheduled to make the migration in the first quarter of fiscal 2020—or before the end of the calendar year—along with FPDS and remaining capabilities under the old SAM.gov.  Once on the new SAM.gov, the FedBizOpps name will go away, replaced by a section of the site titled “Contract Opportunities.”

Continue reading at:  Nextgov

GSA plan for one award schedule gets industry thumbs up

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Government contractors see promise in the General Services Administration’s plan to consolidate the current 24 multiple award schedules into a single schedule over the next couple years, according to preliminary results from the agency’s request for information on the plan, released Aug. 1.

The current system requires agencies using the program to purchase certain goods and services from pre-negotiated contracts that have been separated by topic areas, such as human capital, information technology and professional services.

GSA announced in late 2018 that they would begin the process of consolidating the schedules, citing problems with the current system that sometimes require agencies to purchase multiple services off of different schedules to complete a single project.

For example, an agency looking to reform its call center might have to make purchases off of an IT schedule for new technology, the professional services schedule for a consulting solution and the office management schedule for the call center’s furniture and carpeting.  The agency would then have to cobble together the purchases from those separate schedules into a single project.

According to the RFI’s preliminary results, approximately 88 percent of those that responded to the request agreed that the proposed format would benefit both industry and federal agency customers, while 94 percent agreed that the proposed format was clear to understand.

Continue reading at:  Federal Times

U.S. Government to ditch the DUNS

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Earlier this month, the GSA announced a new Unique Entity Identifier Standard for Federal awards management.  The new standard will go into effect December 2020.  It will replace the current DUNS number system as the official identifier for all businesses contracting with the U.S. Federal Government.  This should make registering to do business with the federal government a little easier, but the proof will be in the roll-out.

The GSA’s Office of Systems Management, Integrated Award Environment (IAE), published an official notice of this new “Unique Entity ID Standard for Awards Management” in the Federal Register on July 10, 2019.  The new standard will be considered “final” on that date.  The GSA plans to have the new system in place by December of 2020.

GSA’s notice announces:

“[T]he U.S. government is moving to a new unique entity identifier for federal awards management, including, but not limited to, contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements, which will ultimately become the primary key to identify entities throughout the federal awarding lifecycle, in SAM.gov, other IAE systems, on required forms, and in downstream government systems.”

GSA explains, “IAE systems will be transitioning from the DUNS® to a SAM-generated Unique Entity ID (UEI),” the new identification standard developed by an inter-agency working group.  The “new entity identifier will be the authoritative identifier once the transition is complete,” and the “DUNS® will be phased out as the entity identifier for entity record[s] within SAM.”  GSA’s website further details this transition-plan, including specifics of GSA’s plan to phase out the current Dun & Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS®) over the next 18 months.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

GSA, DoD kick off first test with new CSO streamlined acquisition approach

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GSA’s Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM) announced it will begin testing the Commercial Solutions Opening (“CSO”) concept where they will acquire “innovative, commercial items, technologies and services currently in the production/commercialization phase as well as adaptations of existing commercial products.”

The goal of the CSO approach is to streamline the acquisition process and simplify contract terms to attract start-up companies and others who have not previously worked with government.  It’s not quite the same at an Other Transaction Authority/Agreements (OTA), but focuses on a similar objective.

FEDSIM posted the first solicitation earlier this month for the Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) for its Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) National Mission Initiative (NMI).

“The JAIC requires an innovative commercial software and services solution that will provide comprehensive data management, end-to-end platform integration, and model/capabilities development of still imagery and computer vision solutions for locating flood affected areas and infrastructure; ultimately identifying at-risk, in-need, and/or harmed/damaged people/infrastructure,” the CSO solicitation states.

JAIC said the commercial system would include 10 characteristics or capabilities, including models to distinguish features like flood lines or dangerous structures, pre-processing, post-processing and integration algorithms necessary to run models as a cohesive, deployable and efficient capability, and integration with new and existing systems.

Responses were due July 22.

FEDSIM says it will post other solicitations for a specific project or technical area of interest when an opportunity is open.

FEDSIM joins the Defense Innovation Unit, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Naval Sea Systems Command, Army Materiel Command and the Department of Homeland Security as having launched their own CSO programs, according to Bloomberg Government.

Congress gave GSA the CSO pilot authority in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

Small businesses struggle to climb the FedRAMP

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Small businesses need lawmakers to ease barriers to product authorization through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, according to industry and federal CIOs speaking before Congress.

FedRAMP is the entity charged with evaluating security and authorizing cloud products.  During a House Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing on the program, CIOs noted challenges for small business in getting offerings approved, such as a lack of transparency with the length of the process and cost.

Or some don’t know it exists it all.

“A lot of small businesses are unaware of the process itself, the security requirements that we have,” said Anil Cheriyan, the director of technology transformation services at the General Services Administration.

It took 20 months for Virtru, a small data protection start-up, to get its product FedRAMP authorized for a federal agency to use, according to testimony from Virtru’s CTO Will Ackerly.  From the beginning, he said, “it was also unclear upon entering the process how long it would take.”  The process cost the company $1.6 million, he told lawmakers.

Entering the FedRAMP approval process can be a “high-risk decision for most small companies” because of the cost “when combined with unknown timelines,” he said.

Looking back, Ackerly said that if his company hadn’t received an agency sponsorship to go through the FedRAMP process, it may not have made it through.

Continue reading at:  Federal Times

GSA offers first look at unique IDs to replace DUNS

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By December 2020, every organization—vendors, grantees, coops—doing business with federal agencies will have a new, 12-character identifier, as the government moves away from the proprietary DUNS number.

The DUNS, created by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962, has been the official entity verification number since it was codified in the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1998.  The General Services Administration, which administers the program, opened the contract to new vendors last year.

GSA awarded the new contract in March to Ernst & Young, which will administer the new ID number, including managing the transition from Dun & Bradstreet.

As that transition work begins, GSA released the technical details of the new numbers and set a virtual meeting for July 25 for all interested parties to learn more.

Continue reading at:  Nextgov

MAP: GSA regions manage thousands of federal properties

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This story is part of Federal News Network’s ongoing series: GSA @ 70: Mission evolved

From dozens of historic lighthouses to the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, the General Services Administration’s 11 regions run the gamut of federal property management.  They also serve thousands of employees through offices such as the Public Buildings Service, Federal Acquisition Service and Office of Small Business Utilization.

GSA’s regions also have their own unique histories and geographical assets.  In honor of the agency’s 70th anniversary this month, Federal News Network compiled highlights of each region, as well as details on their longest-serving employees.

See the interactive GSA Region MAP at the:  Federal News Network

GSA to transition from DUNS to new unique entity ID by Dec. 2020

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Starting in December 2020, the D-U-N-S® number will no longer be the official identifier for doing business with the U.S. Government.  GSA has published an update outlining how it plans to transition away from DUNS numbers to a new unique entity ID for government contractors by Dec. 2020.  On July 10, 2019, a notice published in the Federal Register indicates that GSA will be holding a public meeting regarding the transition on Thursday, July 25, 2019, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), and ending no later than 2 p.m., EST.

Background

Currently, the System for Award Management (SAM.gov) utilizes the Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) ® nine-digit number as the unique identifier for entities throughout the federal awarding lifecycle, in SAM.gov, in other Integrated Award Environment (IAE) systems, on required forms, and in downstream government systems.

In 2016, the government revised both the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations (2 CFR) to remove any proprietary references to D&B and the DUNS® number as the unique entity identifier.  This allowed the government to decouple the required unique identifier from the supporting entity validation services.

As such, the U.S. government is moving to a new unique entity identifier for federal awards management, including, but not limited to, contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements, which will ultimately become the primary key to identify entities throughout the federal awarding lifecycle, in SAM.gov, other IAE systems, on required forms, and in downstream government systems.  The DUNS® number will be phased out as the entity identifier for entity record within SAM.

Through December 2020, IAE systems will be transitioning from the DUNS® number to a SAM-generated Unique Entity ID (UEI).  The standard for the new UEI was developed by an interagency working group.  This new entity identifier will be the authoritative identifier once the transition is complete.

More information can be found at gsa.gov/entityid.  Questions related to government implementation can be directed to entityvalidation@gsa.gov.  All media questions should be directed to the GSA Media Affairs at press@gsa.gov.

Public Meeting

The GSA public meeting will be conducted virtually where information on the awards management Unique Entity ID standard will be presented.  The public meeting will be held on Thursday, July 25, 2019, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), and ending no later than 2 p.m., EST.

Procedures for Attendance

To register for the meeting please email entityvalidation@gsa.gov and the meeting information will be sent to you.

For more information please check out GSA’s Unique Entity Identifier Update and its recent notice in the Federal Register.

GSA begins pilot using OTA-like streamlined acquisition process

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The General Services Administration announced Monday its client support center for acquisitions will use a streamlined process, designed to attract startups, to procure innovative, commercial solutions.

As part of a pilot, GSA’s FEDSIM innovation team will rely on the commercial solutions opening (CSO), a solicitation outside the Federal Acquisition Regulation, to acquire technologies and services in the production phase or adapted from existing products from “traditional and non-traditional government contractors.”

“The goal of this pilot program is to provide a streamlined approach for acquiring innovative commercial products and services,” GSA says.

CSO is a recently created tool with simplified contract terms, which Section 880 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2017 authorized GSA to create the pilot.  It’s similar to the Other Transaction Authority of defense agencies but differs in that it’s not legally binding, GSA says.

Continue reading at:  FedScoop

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