Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Reverse auctions once again in lawmakers’ crosshairs

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Lawmakers are marshaling arguments to restrict the contracting tool called a reverse auction, criticizing agency reliance on a practice dominated by a single private firm at a Thursday hearing of the House Small Business subcommittee.

Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., who has introduced H.R. 1444 to limit reverse auctions, said that allowing contractors to bid electronically with increasingly lower prices to provide goods and services creates “a race to the bottom” that neither assures quality nor helps channel work to small businesses. “When reverse auctions are used properly, they can save taxpayer dollars,” Hanna said. “Unfortunately, some agencies have used reverse auctions in a manner that evades vigorous competition and contractor protections.”

Use of the tool at agencies such as the Veterans Affairs Department is dominated by a single Vienna, Va.-based firm called FedBid, which has become controversial for its lobbying practices. The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has been collecting data on the practice, but has yet to issue guidance, noted the panel’s ranking member, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/03/reverse-auctions-are-lawmakers-crosshairs-again/108069

6 quick fixes that will improve your company’s win rate

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We’re frequently asked how to improve a company’s overall win rate, and I outlined these in the article I wrote in my January 2012 column “How to Raise Your Win Rate by 20 percent” using our seven-factor model. Since then, we’ve been surveying companies to see how well they perform in these seven factors and to identify areas where companies can make immediate improvements.

In this article, I’ll share some of the survey results and show you immediate actions you can take to help raise your company’s overall win rate.

In February and March 2012, we conducted two surveys – one with the Association of Proposal Management Professionals and the other with the Deltek GovCon team. The surveys asked proposal managers, capture managers, and business development professionals to rate how well their companies performed in each of the seven factors. We used 28 questions in the survey to measure performance and to pinpoint areas where companies could make improvements to raise their win rates. Based on the survey, here are six quick fixes that most companies can make to improve their win rates.

1. Capture and Proposal Training: Only 52 percent of the companies surveyed provide career development and professional training for their business development, capture management, and proposal development staffs.

Every company should have career development plans for its employees and offer professional development training for its management, key employees and especially for those people involved in business development, capture management, and proposal development. They should also provide training in proposal writing for technical and managerial professionals to help them write more compelling proposals.

Companies can develop these training programs internally or contract the training to companies that provide such specialized training. However you do it, some training is better than no training. By offering this kind of training, you can immediately leapfrog half the companies in your market.

2. Business Acquisition Process: 54 percent of the companies surveyed have not documented their business acquisition processes.

It is an indisputable principle that having a well-structured business acquisition process increases business acquisition effectiveness and reduces cost, yet half the companies surveyed compete using undocumented processes. Documenting these processes is the first step in raising the maturity of the business acquisition process. All companies of any reasonable size should have defined, repeatable businesses acquisition processes covering the business development, capture, pre-proposal preparation, proposal development, and post-proposal submission phases of the business acquisition life cycle. These processes should be fully supported by management and used for all new business acquisition.

3. Capture Management: Only 33 percent of companies review their capture progress and use these reviews to make management decisions about pursuing or continuing to pursue new business opportunities.

Companies should evaluate every new business pursuit monthly and make an affirmative decision to continue, delay or suspend the pursuit. If no reviews are conducted, then every new business opportunity remains in play, even when it is clear that the company can’t win. Proper capture management reduces the effort spent on opportunities that are likely to be losers and focuses effort on opportunities with a better chance of winning. Measuring capture progress and making associated management decisions also are essential parts of the business acquisition process and necessary for increasing your win rate.

4. Management Decisions: Only 45 percent of companies surveyed use gate reviews as part of their business acquisition process.

The purpose of gate reviews is to ensure that management makes timely decisions about continuing to invest in a new business opportunity and to provide an opportunity for executive management to coach the capture team on how to raise its win probability. These gate reviews are fundamental to effective and efficient acquisition of new business.

5. Annotated Outlines: 70 percent of proposal writers begin writing their assigned sections before management has approved what they are going to write.

Annotated outlines or storyboards probably are not used. If they are used, they are not reviewed and approved by management. No wonder there is so much rewriting involved in completing typical proposals.

6. Proposal Quality: 37 percent of companies surveyed said their proposals suffer from errors that could cause them to lose bids.

Professionally developed proposals do not have these problems. They are always compliant, compelling and responsive. Major improvements in proposal quality are still need by many companies.

Compete survey results are available on our website.

About the Author: Bob Lohfeld is the chief executive officer of the Lohfeld Consulting Group. The article was published by Washington Technology on Apr. 23, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/04/23/lohfeld-7-quick-fixes.aspx?s=wtdaily_240412.

FEMA didn’t award contracts on merit, report says

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency may have violated federal law by trying to distribute contract dollars equally among three firms, rather than selecting the most qualified candidate, according to a new report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security.

In the report dated October but released earlier this month, independent public accounting firm Foxx & Co. found that FEMA may not be complying with the Brooks Act, which requires that the government select engineering and architectural firms based on competency, qualifications and experience. Additionally, the report said that FEMA neither established performance standards for its contractors nor evaluated their performance.

The agency in 2006 awarded contracts to three companies to provide technical assistance, such as engineering services or environmental expertise, to government or nonprofit groups that had received disaster response funding. Irving, Tex.-based Fluor, Arlington-based Emergency Response Program Management Consultants and Gaithersburg-based Nationwide Infrastructure Support Technical Assistance Consultants were all selected to receive future task orders over a five-year period.

Auditors reviewed nine different task orders awarded to the contractors for services provided in response to hurricanes Gustav and Ike in Texas and Louisiana and flooding in Iowa, all in 2008. The contractors received more than $165 million for their work on the disasters, according to the report.

Though the base contract awards complied with the Brooks Act, the audit found no documentation to indicate FEMA had discussions with the three firms before awarding a given task order.

“Without an evaluation of qualifications, questions arise whether FEMA may be using a less qualified contractor to do the work,” the report said. “In addition, a contractor may have already been in place at a disaster location, been more qualified and familiar with the community and issues, and thus could have been a better resource and responded more quickly.”

Auditors recommended the agency seek the Justice Department’s opinion, but FEMA said it is working with the Homeland Security general counsel’s office, which will go to the Justice Department if necessary.

The report also called for FEMA to establish performance expectations and assess contractor performance. FEMA is now developing an evaluation worksheet, a draft of which was distributed to regional divisions in August for their review.

“Without performance expectations or adequate monitoring or evaluations, there is no assurance that the federal government and the state and local entities are receiving the expected . . . contractor services,” auditors added.

Indeed, the report finds that in three task orders it examined, FEMA employees reported having trouble getting the needed technical assistance from the contractor. The report contends that the lack of established expectations and evaluations means the government cannot determine whether it received a fair return on its investment.

— By Marjorie Censer – The Washington Post – Monday, November 22, 2010; page 10

Precision machine parts manufacturer gains ISO certification with Georgia Tech assistance

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When Don Smith began working as sales manager for Precision Products, Inc. in Tunnel Hill, Ga., the company primarily made high precision extrusion parts for the carpet industry. With the downturn in the economy, it was essential to diversify Precision’s customer base.

“As we started diversifying outside of the carpet industry into industries such as automotive, medical, industrial textiles, aerospace and power generation, it became obvious that we were going to have to separate ourselves from the average mom and pop machine shop,” he recalled. “Although most customers don’t demand that machine shops be ISO 9001 certified, it seemed to me that our shop was so close already with all of our process standards, procedures and organization.”

ISO 9001 is an international quality management system that certifies the application of formalized business processes. The standard takes a systematic approach to managing the organization’s processes and ensuring a consistent product that meets customer expectations. Because limited resources and lack of time are often the major challenges to implementing ISO, Smith sought assistance from Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) and a former colleague, Craig Cochran.

Cochran, a quality specialist with EI2, first began working with Rich Graham, director of operations, at Precision Products in January of 2009. He conducted a gap audit to identify areas of improvement, and helped the team develop an implementation plan. He trained the staff at Precision in quality issues and internal auditing, helped them meet project milestones and reviewed all company documentation.

“After Craig’s initial visit, we started building our database of procedures and our quality manual,” Graham said. “Craig came six or eight times over the next 10 months, each time identifying a new set of weaknesses. Late in the fall, he conducted a pre-assessment audit and had a few minor findings but said we could pass then.”

In December 2009, Precision Products received its ISO 9001 certification, 11 months after starting the entire process. In her report, the auditor noted that all of the company’s 35 employees were knowledgeable about the quality initiative and that the shop was one of the cleanest she had ever seen. The certification is especially important to Precision Products in this difficult economy.

“Having ISO has not only instilled some discipline and procedures into our plant to ensure that what we make is the same every time, but it also raises our awareness with a customer that this place is for real. ISO isn’t just a quality tool, it’s a marketing tool,” Smith noted. “What we’re really selling to our customers is machine uptime, innovation and service. They’re now getting all of those things and a quality part made in an ISO shop.”

Since 2008, Precision Products has added numerous new customers and has increased sales by 30 percent. According to Smith, the ISO certification gets Precision’s foot in the door with multinational, billion dollar companies. The company is also planning to add employees and expand the facility space in the near future.

“ISO certification was like training for a marathon; it was tough and a long way, but we were very prepared with Georgia Tech’s assistance,” said Graham. “With Craig’s preparation, there was nothing left for the auditors to find. It went very smoothly for us.”

David Davis founded Precision Products, Inc. 17 years ago to make high precision extrusion parts for the carpet industry. Today, the family-owned business makes original equipment manufacturer (OEM) replacement parts for industries as varied as textile, food and beverage, automotive, medical, aerospace, military and power generation, in addition to reverse engineering parts.

“Precision Parts worked hard to develop a concise, streamlined management system that would match their no-nonsense way of doing business. They achieved this by first determining their biggest risks, and then building controls around the management of these risks,” Cochran said. “Where there were no risks, the company relies on the experience and skills of their machinists.”

About Enterprise Innovation Institute:

The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute helps companies, entrepreneurs, economic developers and communities improve their competitiveness through the application of science, technology and innovation. It is one of the most comprehensive university-based programs of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization and economic development in the nation.

Research News & Publications Office

Enterprise Innovation Institute

Georgia Institute of Technology

75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314

Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

Media Relations Contacts: Nancy Fullbright (912-963-2509); E-mail: (nancy.fullbright@innovate.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail (john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu).

Writer: Nancy Fullbright

“Aerospace Quality” is focus of May 20 forum

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The Enterprise Innovation Institute’s next Business Excellence Network Meeting  is all about Aerospace Quality. 

If you’ve ever traveled by air or seen planes in the air, you know that this topic is a matter of life and death.  In fact, the lessons of aerospace quality assurance are applicable to any industry, no matter the product or service being produced.

Clients and friends of the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center are invited to join us at this high flying event.

It’s scheduled for Thursday, May 20 —  from 9 AM until 12 noon — at the GTRI Auditorium, located at 250 14th Street in Atlanta. 

Attendance is free, but pre-registration is required.

In order to register, please click this link and enter the requested information:  http://businessexcellence.eventbrite.com

The GTRI Auditorium is the building right beside Georgia Public Broadcasting on 14th Street. You can’t miss it. Parking is free inside the parking deck. Your internet mapping programs (such as Mapquest) and your GPS devices will accurately guide you to 250 14th Street.

About the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute:

The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute helps enterprises improve their competitiveness through the application of science, technology, and innovation.  One of the most comprehensive university-based programs of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization and economic development in the nation, the Enterprise Innovation Institute provides programs that:

  • Help entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies.
  • Improve the competitiveness of established companies.
  • Commercialize technology developed in Georgia Tech research labs.
  • Help local and state governments adopt innovative practices.
  • Assist economic developers with innovative approaches.
  • Serve as a bridge to Georgia Tech resources.

For more information, go to http://innovate.gatech.edu.

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