Handed new responsibilities, Army Sustainment Command builds services contract management from the ground up.

by Mr. Jerome Jastrab

Government contracting is indeed a complicated and, at times, perplexing business. It’s an arena governed by the massive Federal Acquisition Regulation, where lack of knowledge and failure to perform due diligence can significantly increase the government’s exposure to cost and performance risks. Imagine you’re building a house and you ask the general contractor how many subcontracts he had open, which companies held them, what type of work the subcontractors were performing and how he would assess the quality of their work. Now imagine his or her response to those questions is, “I’m not really sure.”

That’s similar to where the U.S. Army Sustainment Command (ASC) found itself at a command level in October 2010, when the U.S. Army Installation Management Command Directorates of Logistics, now known as Logistics Readiness Centers (LRCs), were placed under operational control of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, ultimately being reassigned in October 2012. This significantly changed the culture of ASC, as contracted services became a major component of ASC’s logistics capability; today ASC has more than 350 services contracts worth nearly $1 billion in annual spending—about half of ASC’s budget.

BOX UP, READY TO GO
Contract workers prepare to load a ship with military containers and vehicles in June 2015 in support of the European Activity Set buildup at the Army Sustainment Command’s Army Strategic Logistics Activity – Charleston (ASLAC), located on Naval Weapons Station Charleston, South Carolina. After Army Logistics Readiness Centers transitioned to the Army Materiel Command in 2012, ASC implemented a series of programs and processes to oversee contract performance and ensure that its services contracting efforts were on track.

Directly following the transition, services contracts were generally decentralized down to the LRC at each installation and there was no comprehensive command-level oversight and management of contracted services from a portfolio management perspective. Considered common practice at the time, this structure reflected larger issues across the entire DOD. As recently as May 2015, a U.S. Army Audit Agency report stated: “Army leaders had no reliable means of knowing how many service contracts had been awarded for the Army or the value of those contracts.” It’s not a huge leap to infer from this statement that this lack of visibility brings with it inherent waste, and that opportunities exist to achieve significant savings.

‘SERVICES CONTRACTING A TEAM SPORT’
Instructors at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) are fond of saying, “Services contracting is a team sport,” one that involves all stakeholders. During the initial phase of assuming responsibility of the LRCs, the newly assembled ASC stakeholders were not functioning as a team. Complicating factors included the geographical dispersion of the LRCs and the diversity and geographical dispersion of supporting contracting agencies. Additionally, as has been documented in several audits, Army commands responsible for the organizations generating the requirements for services contracts had neither the automated tools nor the business skills to take on the task of managing services contracts throughout their life cycle.

GOING UP
Contract workers conduct maintenance on military equipment in support of the European Activity Set at ASLAC, a government-owned, contractor-operated facility that provides maintenance services for the Army’s Prepositioned Stocks (APS) program, in June 2015. ASC, which oversees the APS program, has taken steps recently to ensure that Army commands have the tools and the business training to manage services contracts throughout their life cycle.

With a desire to gain visibility of all service contracts at the command level to enable program management, and considering the lack of an Army enterprise business intelligence tool that could manage this type of information, ASC realized it had to help itself, and help itself fast. The first step was to build an inventory of services contracts, establish processes to review and approve requirements and then create automated tools to support these processes. Historically, DOD had seen services contracts as enablers in fulfilling operational requirements, and not as something in their own right, and as a result there were no automation systems in place to track them outside of the contracting community.

ESTABLISHING THE DATABASE
Out of necessity, ASC developed the Enterprise Requirements Management System (ERMS), the ASC Service Requirements Tracking Database (ASRTD) and the Services Contract Approval (SCA) Routing. ERMS is an automated tool that facilitates requirements validation and creates a detailed record of services requirements for the current budget year. ASRTD maintains a record of current and closed contracts, creating a historical lineage of contracts to requirements and the forecast life cycle based on programmed periods of performance. SCA Routing is an automated staffing and approval tool to process the request for services contract approval form, which also shares data with ASRTD. (See Figure 1.)

FIGURE 1: ORGANIZING THE DATA
ERMS facilitates requirements validation and creates a detailed record of services requirements; ASRTD maintains a record of current and closed contracts; and SCA Routing processes the request for services contract approval form. (All graphics courtesy of ASC)

Once ASC was able to track services contracts, leaders wanted to put together a team with the skills to use that data to develop efficiencies and control costs. The goal was to develop the business skills needed to review and improve acquisition strategies in coordination with contracting partners, and then ensure contractor performance after a contract was awarded. To develop the requisite skills, ASC established the Installation Logistics Division, a staff element that could actively manage the LRC’s services requirements by commodity through the service acquisition life cycle. ASC also established the Contract Management Office (CMO) to serve as a bridge between the requiring activities and the contracting agencies. In coordination with this action, the Army established the position of portfolio manager for logistics management services in ASC headquarters as part of its horizontal governance structure; that function was also placed in the CMO. With those changes, ASC had the structure in place to initiate continuous improvement in services contracts management.

One of the first significant efforts at improving the efficiency of services contracts was using a portfolio approach to establish the Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise (EAGLE) basic ordering agreement, a contract vehicle created to set up a single logistics provider for all supply, maintenance and transportation requirements on an Army installation or joint base. The acquisition strategy was approved in February 2012 and the first task order was awarded in August 2013.

LIFT THAT BALE
Contracted longshoremen offload containers from a ship at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point near Wilmington, North Carolina, March 2015. Contracted services are a major component of ASC’s logistics capability: It has more than 350 services contracts worth nearly $1 billion in annual spending, representing half of ASC’s budget. (Photos by Sgt. 1st Class Shannon Wright, ASC Public Affairs)

Following the successful launch of EAGLE, ASC then began to focus on improvements in the contract pre-award phase, specifically on standardizing performance work statements (PWS) and quality assurance surveillance plans (QASP) for each commodity of logistics services. ASC sought the support of DAU, using the DAU Service Acquisition Workshop, where DAU instructors facilitate PWS and QASP development, and the DAU Acquisition Requirements Roadmap Tool Suite, a “how-to” guide to effectively managing services requirements—a sort of “Services Acquisition for Dummies”—to develop and refine these products. To further increase competition and productivity and improve market research, ASC also expanded the use of industry days, small business symposiums and advance planning briefings for industry. Finally, to tie all these efforts together, ASC established a business process where all services requirements with a total value above $200,000 are reviewed by an acquisition strategy review board made up of members of the Senior Executive Service from ASC and the U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC). There, a multifunctional team from the requirements and contracting community works to develop and present an acquisition strategy to the board for approval.

ASC’s most recent initiatives focus on contract post-award activities, primarily monitoring costs and contractor performance. To accomplish this, ASC has begun conducting a quarterly contract management review, or CMR. The CMR is an open forum that allows the ASC commanding general to review the services contract inventory and discuss service contract performance with the headquarters staff, Army field support brigade (AFSB) commanders and supporting commanders and managers from ACC. As part of this review, the activity responsible for each services requirement assesses each contract using cost, schedule and performance as evaluation metrics. Subsequently, each AFSB then selects two to three contracts to undergo a “deep dive” review, which they brief to the ASC commanding general. As part of this review, contracting officer’s representatives’ surveillance activities and ratings of contractor performance are reviewed. Positive or negative trends are identified and then addressed if necessary, making the command more responsive to situations where a contract may be veering off course. Finally, to spread best practices across the command and to identify potential pitfalls, each commander or responsible manager is given the opportunity to share lessons learned with their peers. The CMR is already paying dividends, as it has renewed focus on the importance of post-award surveillance activities and documenting contractor performance throughout the command.

EAGLE HAS LANDED
The Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise (EAGLE) basic ordering agreement was created to establish a single logistics provider on an Army installation or joint base. To date, the program has awarded 30 task orders totaling $1.8 billion, generating a cost avoidance savings of 19 percent.

CONCLUSION
As ASC moves forward in an environment where resources are constrained but customers continue to expect the same level of quality logistics services, the command plans to build on the successes achieved over the past four years. EAGLE will remain one of ASC’s largest programs; to date the program has awarded 30 task orders totaling $1.8 billion—generating a cost avoidance savings of 19 percent—and reduced the number of duplicative contracts by 56 percent. ASC plans to complete the remaining 16 EAGLE task orders by FY18 for a total value of approximately $4.5 billion, which will generate additional cost avoidance savings. Other future efforts will focus on driving down costs through better cost analysis and management, following the DOD lead to reduce duplicative contracts through use of strategic sourcing, and continuing to implement Better Buying Power initiatives on future contracts. Contracted services will remain an integral part of the way ASC provides sustainment to the Army. Improving the business skills to be able to effectively partner with ACC and achieve best value for the government will be critical to continued success.

For more information on the EAGLE program, go to http://www.acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc_ri/eagle/index.html or email usarmy.ria.asc.list.lce@mail.mil

MR. JEROME JASTRAB is the Army’s portfolio manager for logistics management services at the Army Sustainment Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. He holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, a master’s in international relations from Troy State University and a bachelor’s in industrial technology from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He is Level III certified in life cycle logistics and Level I certified in program management, and is part of the Army Acquisition Workforce.

This article will be printed in the October – December issue of Army AL&T magazine.

Subscribe to Army AL&T News, the premier online news source for the Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (AL&T) Workforce.

The 413th CSB works to strengthen teamwork between CCOs and attorneys—a relationship that’s becoming more important as the military’s operational focus shifts to the Pacific.

by Capt. James S. Kim

In tomorrow’s ever-shrinking world, U.S. forces will have a continually evolving mission to provide full spectrum military operations across the globe. It is in this dynamic atmosphere that contingency contracting officers (CCOs) find themselves with the unenviable task of juggling the dual missions of supporting garrison contract operations while always maintaining readiness to deploy to a forward area in support of expeditionary, contingency and training operations. In the unique and unpredictable atmosphere of deployed operations, continued and reliable reachback legal support is paramount to mission success.

In the complex area of operations encompassing the Pacific theater, there is a constant flow of missions, training exercises, humanitarian aid and disaster relief, all going on across more than a dozen countries. As the primary contracting mechanism for the U.S. Army Pacific, the 8th Theater Sustainment Command and the 25th Infantry Division, CCOs from the 413th Contracting Support Brigade (CSB) provide contracting support to more than 25 overseas missions, training exercises and key leader engagements in any given fiscal year.
Unlike the established processes and systems for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, the high operational tempo environments of the Pacific pose a unique set of challenges. These missions and exercises, such as Lightning Strike, Angkor Sentinel, Pacific Pathways and Khaan Quest, demand the same end results as a garrison contracting office, but with a severely truncated timeline, limited resources and language and cultural barriers.

CCOs must operate within local acquisition customs and methods and navigate the cultural and legal nuances of each country, while maintaining the strict standards of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the ethical, fiscal and legal requirements of the contracting realm.

With deployed contracting, an additional set of rules and requirements comes into play, along with all the garrison regulations. CCOs, together with their advising contract attorney, must identify and address a plethora of other potential issues that could affect a requirement. CCOs are forced to not only think outside the box, but do so while expanding their box of knowledge.

TRAINING FOR DISASTER
A contracting team works together during the weeklong 413th CSB Disaster Training Exercise 2016 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Because the relationship between a deployed contracting officer and the garrison-based contracting attorney is so important, contracting attorneys live with their CTs during the exercise. They also inject surprise legal events into the scenario, so CTs get used to managing the legal ramifications of unexpected scenarios that arise overseas. (Photo by Master Sgt. Veronica Stewart, 413th CSB)

‘FAR’ FAR AWAY
Factors that are nonexistent in a garrison setting take on an entirely new meaning overseas. Which appropriation will pay for the contracts? Are there any acquisition and cross-servicing agreements (ACSAs) in play, and do they influence the nature of the requirement? What are the implications of neglecting to include the Defense Base Act insurance clause? Is the vendor base capable of financially supporting our contracts, knowing that payment cannot be made until performance? In addition to assessing the effects of operational contract support on a local economy, a CCO must also be wary of the legal and ethical implications of overseas contracting.

Although all CCOs are well-versed in the basic tenets of the FAR, it is the contract attorneys who thrive on deciphering this massive tome. In a garrison setting, the attorneys are involved in every aspect of acquisitions, from the acquisition strategy plan to award and beyond. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of operations coupled with the limited number of attorneys make this level of involvement neither possible nor practical in the forward deployed environment of the Pacific.

Moreover, it would not be fiscally responsible to send an attorney on every overseas operation or training mission. Therefore, each CCO is presented with the challenge of bridging the requirements of the mission with the FAR, while receiving reachback legal support from attorneys thousands of miles away to ensure that he or she is providing the same standard of legal advice and support that’s offered in garrison.

ACTIVE MEMBERS OF THE CONTRACTING TEAM
The 413th CSB is constantly vigilant in its goal to inject and embed contract attorneys with its contracting teams (CTs). With four attorneys spread across three offices in Hawaii and Alaska, the goal is to provide face-to-face legal advice whenever practical, including contingency contracting. Each mission is assigned to a designated contract attorney who serves as the primary legal adviser.

This begins with the planning and solicitation phase in garrison, providing instant reachback support when the CTs are forward, and concludes with the successful completion of the mission. The intent in providing each CT with its own dedicated attorney is multifaceted. It provides the CCO a single point of contact to reach back to in the event that immediate legal advice and guidance are required. Furthermore, the assigned attorneys are familiar with the mission, the requirements and the contingencies that will undoubtedly arise.

Even the simplest aspects of contracting have a tendency to become complicated in an overseas environment. With different “colors” of money, cultural and business differences, unique requirements and ethical issues contributing to an already constantly evolving situation, CCOs know to seek legal advice prior to making a decision or obligating the government prematurely. Even taking time differences into account, legal advice can often be obtained in minutes, and is never more than a few hours away. Prior to departing on a mission, CCOs reach out to the servicing attorney and identify potential legal issues they are anticipating, and the attorney is put on notice that reachback support under a tight turnaround time could likely be sought during this period.

PARTNERS
Maj. David Garrison, left, 413th CSB CCO, works closely with the Royal Cambodian Army liaison; Master Sgt. Warren Cooper, contracting officer’s representative; and Maj. Steven Huber, resource manager, during Angkor Sent­inel 2016, an annual U.S.-Cambodia exercise. Understanding the cultural and legal restrictions is crucial to developing a successful partnership with foreign militaries—the risk of making unauthorized commitments is real, in a collaborative overseas exercise without a contracting attorney on site. (Photo by Master Sgt. Mary Ferguson, 8th Theater Sustainment Command Public Affairs Office)

Mission preparedness doesn’t begin with the identification of a contingency or overseas training exercise. The 413th CSB takes a proactive approach, providing as much training and education as possible. Contract attorneys conduct monthly training on topics covering the gamut of contracting, from end-of-year fiscal issues and ethical concerns in foreign countries to the dangers of unauthorized commitments by government purchase card holders. The legal office takes concerns raised and lessons learned from previous missions and CCO after-action reports to identify relevant topics.

In another effort to shed light on potential legal issues that can arise in contingency operations, the 413th legal office actively participates in the annual Disaster Training Exercise (DTX).

DTX is a joint exercise with CCOs from the 413th CSB, the 411th CSB in Yongsan, Korea, and the 766th Specialized Contracting Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. In the truncated timeline of one week, they are required to provide cradle-to-grave contracting support involving both simple cash purchases using Standard Form 44 acquisitions for bottled water and office supplies, and the more complex acquisitions involving blanket purchase agreements, contracting officer representatives and contract modifications.

During DTX, an attorney sleeps, eats and lives with the CTs while providing legal support and advice. This level of involvement builds camaraderie and team unity, and helps CCOs recognize legal issues that can arise during contingency operations.

In addition to providing legal, fiscal and ethical guidance, the contract attorney also injects legal issues into DTX. The legal injects are meant to be dynamic and thought-provoking, forcing the CCOs to think outside the box and recognize the potentially far-reaching legal implications of a simple occurrence. For example, these injects demonstrate how a simple request from the host nation’s military to borrow equipment can lead to an analysis of bona fide needs, the Purpose Statute, ACSAs, bribes and improper gifts, and culminate in a possible claim, unauthorized commitment or Antideficiency Act violation.

CONCLUSION
As U.S. forces continue to shift focus to the Pacific theater, the frequency of overseas operations will undoubtedly continue to rise, along with the complexity of the required contracts. As a result, the interdependent relationship between CCOs and contracting attorneys will become much more important. To foster development of this relationship, the 413th CSB has outlined several keys to success:

• Continue to assign individual attorneys to missions.
• Have attorneys conduct training for CCOs on a regular basis.
• Incorporate attorneys into an annual capstone training exercise, such as the DTX or the DOD Operational Contract Support Joint Exercise.
• Encourage continued training and development of emerging topics for attorneys.
• Encourage continued interaction between Army contract attorneys with their sister service counterparts.

As the U.S. role in overseas missions and exercises continues to grow, the requirements for a CCO will become increasingly complex. With this added responsibility, authority and discretion comes the inherent danger of abuse and complacency.

In an effort to steer clear of this, the 413th CSB is constantly searching for innovative ways to provide the legal training for its CCOs and increase attorneys’ presence and involvement in overseas missions. It is only through this level of involvement that contract attorneys can provide advice on interpreting the FAR and guide CCOs in navigating the ethical, fiscal and legal landmines that litter the acquisition battlefield.

For more information, please visit the 413th CSB website at http://www.acc.army.mil/ecc/413th or contact the author at james.s.kim22.mil@mail.mil.

CARPENTRY AND CONTRACTING
A U.S. Army engineer shows basic carpentry skills to his Cambodian counterparts during Exercise Angkor Sentinel 2016. CCOs—who deploy to all overseas missions and exercises to ensure units have the supplies needed to complete their mission—must always be aware of the legal implications of mixing requirements for U.S. and foreign personnel. (Photo by Master Sgt. Mary Ferguson, 8th Theater Sustainment Command Public Affairs Office)

CAPT. JAMES S. KIM is the deputy command judge advocate with the 413th Contracting Support Brigade at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. He holds a J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in history and economics from Boston College.

This article was originally published in the July – September 2016 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

Subscribe to Army AL&T News, the premier online news source for the Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (AL&T) Workforce.

Construction contracting in Qatar provides a user-level view of acquisition reform, its possibilities and its challenges.

by Maj. Michael J. Carroll and Capt. Sarah Lark

Acquisition reform generally happens at echelons above reality for most of the Defense Acquisition Workforce. Successful reform is evident only when it begins to take root at levels below the contracting support brigade or below wing-level contracting. One of the most effective of these initiatives is the use of contracting vehicles to support multiple service component contracting offices. This integration can provide quick wins in terms of manpower and cost reduction.

However, the process is not as straightforward or as simple as it might seem. There are challenges to overcome and solutions to work out in implementing the necessary systems and processes, as the Army’s Regional Contracting Command – Qatar (RCC-QA), a subordinate element of the 408th Contracting Support Brigade, and the Air Force’s 379th Expeditionary Contracting Squadron (ECONS) experienced in working together to support construction efforts in Qatar.

COMPETING FOR VENDORS
Since the announcement that Qatar would host the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, construction efforts across the country have exploded. High-dollar construction projects associated with the tournament have drawn the larger firms away from minor construction on Camp As Sayliyah and Al Udeid Air Base, the two installations in Qatar for U.S. military operations. Because the military-specific projects must be below the military construction threshold of $1 million, fewer vendors are interested in them than in the ­multimillion-dollar projects to support the World Cup.

GETTING THE JOB DONE
Staff Sgt. Charles Wilson, 379th ECONS construction contracting officer, talks with a supervisor at a construction site in January at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. When military construction projects took a back seat to much more lucrative construction projects in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, Army and Air Force contracting offices took a unified approach to create larger, more appealing contract opportunities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Terrica Y. Jones, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs)

With the smaller number of vendors to meet continued mission requirements, the Air Force and Army contracting activities were looking to streamline the award process by establishing a multiple-award construction contract or multiple-award task order contract. These contract vehicles would allow the contracting offices to lock in a vendor base and ensure that they would be able to satisfy the requirements of their customers. Both agencies released requests for proposals and quickly realized that if they did not work together, the Army and Air Force would be competing for a relatively small subset of vendors that would be interested in these lower-dollar projects.

PINPOINTING THE PROBLEM
During the first week of May 2016, while the Army and Air Force organizations were developing their independent contract vehicles, a joint contracting support board (JCSB) was being established in Qatar. Joint Publication 4-10, Operational Contract Support, identifies the JCSB as “the primary JFC [joint force commander] mechanism to coordinate and deconflict contracting actions within a designated operational area.”

It was during the initial JCSB that the U.S. Central Command operational contract support integration cell (OCSIC) discovered the duplication of effort. The OCSIC is the lead agency within the combatant command that is responsible for integrating and synchronizing operational contract support. The contracting activities discussed the best resolution and decided that the 408th Contracting Support Brigade would continue with the award of a contract vehicle that could support both organizations.

Both commanders recognized that this was an opportunity to work together and gain efficiencies. Under the system that existed prior to this collaboration, each office was responsible for its own construction contract vehicle. By using a joint contract vehicle supporting both organizations, the commanders had the flexibility to prioritize other, nonconstruction requirements from their customers and focus on new strategic contracts to support the command.

ADDRESSING CONCERNS
Initial discussions between the two staffs raised several concerns:

A lack of a common contract writing system between the services in Qatar. In theater, the Army used (and still uses) Procurement Defense Desktop (PD2) as the primary means of writing and awarding contracts. The Air Force, although trained on PD2 stateside, uses oContrax as its contract writing system in theater. Though the two systems have similar objectives, they lack a common system architecture that would allow them to communicate with each other.

A major difference between the organizations in accepting and invoicing procedures. The Army relies on the Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) suite of applications, while the Air Force uses a manual invoice process through Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. Because invoicing instructions are included in the contract clauses, identifying the procedures that vendors will use is vital to ensure timely processing of payments.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
Shimeka Goston, center, a contract specialist with RCC-QA, delivers a presentation on registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) to vendors at a March industry day at the Alfardan Gardens Housing Area in Ar-Rayyan, Qatar. Supporting Goston were other members of the pre-award team: from left, Fakera Nazneen, Michael Kraft, Maj. Trevor Chambers and Shonna Tyson. The event was a chance for vendors to get more information about the benefits of doing business with the U.S. government; SAM is a central registry of companies authorized to do business with the government. (Photo by Redjie Del Rosario, Vectrus)

The need for a method whereby each organization can track the actions it has awarded. The contracting activities base their manning decisions in part on the number and complexity of actions that a contracting office has awarded. Thus, each organization must be able to account for the workload involved in awarding and administering contracts.

NOT-SO-SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
The seemingly simple solution—to grant the 379th ECONS access to the existing RCC-QA structures within Procurement Defense Desktop—proved to be more challenging than expected. Although they were already trained in the use of PD2, granting the Air Force personnel access to Army systems required sponsoring them in Army Knowledge Online and filling out multiple system access requests. The processing times for these requests varied, but the distances between system administrators in the continental U.S. and the end users in theater only made the waits longer. The significant time differences often meant lost days between submission of requests and actions taken.

The next hurdle was a longer-than-expected wait for the network communications team to verify the acceptability of the Citrix software used by the Army and install it on the Air Force users’ computers. Because of the obvious need for information security, this process took approximately six weeks longer than expected.

Similarly, the two services lack a common procedure for acceptance and invoicing. The immediate solution was to include a local clause that Air Force-awarded task orders required submission of invoices manually through established Air Force procedures and that Army-awarded task orders would use WAWF. Issuing multiple sets of instructions for the same payment process, however, runs counter to the very efficiencies that the services have been trying to create.

CONCLUSION
The collaboration between an Army regional contracting command and an Air Force contracting squadron is a small step in realizing the goal of operational contract support: that different agencies work together to enable the combatant commander to fulfill the mission. While great strides can be made at the tactical level to increase communication and cooperation, the larger acquisition community must take concrete steps at the joint level to advance this goal.

The adoption of a common contract writing system and vendor payment method would allow for a single pool of system administrators and provide more effective theaterwide support.

For more information, contact the authors at Michael.j.carroll50.mil@mail.mil or sarah.lark@auab.afcent.af.mil.

SHELTER FROM THE SUN
Contractors wire rebar together in January to support the poles for a new 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron sunshade to protect military working dogs assigned to the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Joint Army-Air Force contracting efforts in Qatar have pointed up the need for permanent improvements in processes and systems to enable more interservice collaboration. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Terrica Y. Jones, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs)

MAJ. MICHAEL J. CARROLL is a contract management officer at RCC-QA, Camp As Sayliyah. He has an MBA in contract management from the Naval Postgraduate School and a B.S. in business management from Empire State College. He is Level II certified in contracting and has been a member of the acquisition workforce for nearly four years.

CAPT. SARAH LARK (USAF) is the commander of the 379th ECONS at Al Udeid Air Base. She has an M.A. in procurement and acquisition management from Webster University and a B.S. in business administration from The Citadel. She is Level III certified in contracting and has been a member of the acquisition workforce for 10 years.

This article will be printed in the October – December issue of Army AL&T magazine.

Subscribe to Army AL&T News, the premier online news source for the Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (AL&T) Workforce.

DIUx, DOD’s outreach to the tech community, has developed commercial solutions opening, an OTA mechanism that moves from first contact to final contract in 60 days or less. And DIUx is about to share how to use CSO with the rest of the federal government.

by Mr. Michael Bold

When Secretary of Defense Ash Carter started the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) in August 2015 in a bid to re-establish DOD’s once robust ties to the technology innovation of Silicon Valley, DIUx needed to find a way to move “at the speed of business.”

Silicon Valley considered the department a bad customer, if it considered DOD at all. The federal government’s normal contracting process, guided by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), could take six months to a year (and in some cases considerably longer). Silicon Valley’s tech companies expect to move from proposal to contract in a couple of months, if not weeks.

When Carter announced a refocused DIUx 2.0 in May 2016 under its new managing partner, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot-turned-entrepreneur Raj Shah, he also announced that he had requested $30 million to direct toward nontraditional companies with technologies—already commercially available or soon to be released—that could be used to meet military needs. (Carter has since opened a DIUx office in Boston and a presence in Austin, Texas.)

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter speaks with Defense Innovation Unit Experimental employees as he arrives at Moffett Field, Calif., to deliver remarks at DIUx May 11, 2016. (Photos by Senior Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz)

DIUX, ACC-NEW JERSEY DEVELOP CSO
Seeking ways to get DOD up to Silicon Valley’s “speed of business,” DIUx, with help from the U.S. Army Contracting Command – New Jersey (ACC-NJ), came up with the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO). In contracting parlance, a CSO is a solicitation instrument allowing for the award of other transaction agreements (OTAs) that DIUx has used to award $36 million in contracts so far. Using a CSO, the time from when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with a promising company or technology first responds to a DIUx proposal to when a contract is signed has averaged 59 days, said Lauren Schmidt in an October interview with Army AL&T. Schmidt is pathways director for DIUx and a former special assistant to the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. The fastest contact-to-contract was 31 days, Schmidt said.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, signed in November 2015 by President Obama, encouraged broader, more effective use of OTAs. In late November 2016, DIUx released a guide on CSOs and OTAs to enable other federal government organizations to set up their own innovative contracting vehicles. “Our goal from DIUx is that more organizations in DOD can use this type of authority and design particular processes that meet their particular needs,” Schmidt said. “It doesn’t have to be exactly the way that we did the CSO. There’s lots of ways you can design a process so it meets the needs of your particular organization.”

STRAIGHTFORWARD PROCESS
The CSO process is fairly simple, Schmidt explained. First, DIUx posts basic areas of interest on its website. These aren’t detailed requirements, she said, but descriptions of a problem DIUx is trying to solve or a technology it’s interested in. Interested companies submit a paper—fewer than five pages of text, or briefing charts—on the company or its technology, generally required within about two weeks. “We want to have a low barrier of entry to companies that have not worked with DOD before, have not put together a government proposal before,” Schmidt said. “So for this first step, they can just use information they probably already have on hand,” instead of what can often be a costly and time-consuming proposal development process.

Next, DIUx, acting in a sort of venture capitalist role, selects companies to pitch their technologies to its DOD customers. (DIUx is quick to point out that it is not a venture capitalist.) Finally, if DIUx, ACC-NJ and the DOD customer think the company or technology has promise, the company is invited to submit a full proposal and negotiate an OTA. Under a CSO, nearly all terms, including intellectual property, are negotiable.

“This whole process is fast, flexible and collaborative, and these three attributes are really critical to our ability to work with a lot of these nontraditional companies,” Schmidt said. Most important, she said, is the collaboration. “Rather than the government issuing a detailed RFP [request for proposal] that the contractor has to respond to behind a firewall, in isolation and without discussions with the DOD customer, we actually burn down that firewall and design projects together after we issue an RFP.”

DIUx’s CSO is a pilot in the use of this type of contracting instrument, said Paul Milenkowic, ACC-NJ executive director. “We can move quicker in that we’re not bogged down on a lot of procedural timeframes or steps that don’t apply to other transaction agreements,” he said. “So one benefit is that we can focus more on the desired outcome versus ‘are we following the proper steps’.”

FLEXIBILITY ALLOWS SPEED
The key to the CSO’s speed is the flexibility that OTAs have as opposed to the FAR, Milenkowic said. “The FAR’s going to define steps and timeframes—a lot of them are dictated by the regulation,” he said. “With that flexibility in the commercial solutions opening, we’ve created efficiencies in the process that we wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to do under the FAR. … The FAR is more rules-oriented versus the other transaction authority.”

But moving quickly doesn’t mean sloppiness, Milenkowic emphasized. “We’re not doing speed at the expense of quality.” Ensuring quality requires two things, he said. “The first is people. … We have a mature staff here that we’ve developed over the past few years at ACC-New Jersey, and to me that’s essential, as there’s a higher level of engagement, communication and interaction required and one has to feel comfortable taking this additional responsibility on.”

The second is a solid partnership. “The other thing that’s helped us is the entire DIUx team has been highly aligned in that we’re all on the same page, we understand the process that we laid out, and we understand the goals we’re working toward. The team also has a high degree of commitment, and that includes the staff at DIUx, the staff here at ACC-New Jersey and our local legal support as well,” he said.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is greeted by DIUx Managing Director Raj Shah as he arrives at Moffett Field, California, to deliver remarks on May 11, 2016. Carter “refocused” the experimental unit, with Shah at the helm, on finding ways for DOD to do business as quickly as the tech companies innovating and experimenting in DOD areas of interest.

ENHANCED COLLABORATION
CSOs provide an element of collaboration that’s not possible under the FAR, Milenkowic said. “Essentially, the CSO has turned the process on its head by asking commercial firms to provide a solution to our problem statement, and this is typically not what the government does,” he said. “We usually are dictating a solution, and here we are asking for one. And therefore we might have vastly different approaches to solving a problem.”

CSOs also allow enhanced interaction between the stakeholder and the contractor. Once a contractor is selected—typically a company that hasn’t done business with DOD or the government before—ACC-NJ and DIUx will help with the content of the proposal and the scope of the project. The collaboration with the contractor, Milenkowic said, “allows us to adjust the project as we go along and as we conclude negotiations. We’re getting more insight and input from the contractor in that process. So we like to think that in the end we’re going to be optimizing that solution in a better manner.”

CONCLUSION
In recent years, senior leaders in DOD and the congressional armed services committees have focused on reform as a way to speed up the acquisition process. Their efforts have resulted in new authorities and organizations designed to help DOD access the technology it requires, particularly from new commercial sources.

Founded as a way to reach into Silicon Valley’s innovation culture, DIUx, with ACC-NJ’s help, finds itself at the forefront of a trend in acquisition innovation. DIUx has pioneered ways to bring in nontraditional defense contractors to provide next-generation capabilities that would in the past have been out of DOD’s reach. Among its early agreements are plans for unmanned sailboats to collect climate and other data; small unmanned aerial vehicles that provide Soldiers critical situational awareness in caves and buildings; and hands-free, ears-free, two-way removable communications devices hidden in the mouth that integrate wirelessly with radios and offer clear communications in high-noise environments.

The November release of DIUX’s guidebook provides the means for organizations across the DOD acquisition enterprise to break up logjams in filling capability gaps, working in timelines of days and weeks instead of months and years.

• Open to nontraditional companies and traditional defense companies under certain conditions.
• A streamlined application process requires only minimal corporate and technical information.
• Flexibility to use best practices with relief from the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
• No mandatory cost accounting standards or reporting requirements.
• Certified cost and pricing data are not required.
• Fast-track selection timelines with most awards within 30 calendar days of proposal submission.
• Negotiable payment terms.
• Non-dilutive capital.
• Negotiable intellectual property rights.
• Direct feedback from operators, customers and users within DOD to help product teams develop and hone product design and functionality.
• Potential follow-on funding for promising technologies and sponsorship of user test cases for prototypes.
• Successful products and technologies may be eligible for accelerated procurement by DOD.

For more information, go to https://www.diux.mil/.

MR. MICHAEL BOLD provides contract support to the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center (USAASC). He is a writer/editor for Network Runners Inc., with more than 30 years of editing experience at newspapers, including the McClatchy Washington Bureau, The Sacramento Bee, the San Jose Mercury News, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He holds a B.J. in journalism from the University of Missouri.

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COMMAND/ORGANIZATION: 411th Contracting Support Brigade, U.S. Expeditionary Contracting Command
TITLE: Government Purchase Card Branch chief; supervisory procurement analyst
DAWIA CERTIFICATION: Level III in contracting; Level I in logistics and program management
YEARS OF SERVICE IN WORKFORCE: 6
YEARS OF MILITARY SERVICE: 24 (U.S. Air Force, retired 2010)
EDUCATION: MBA, University of Phoenix; B.S. in resource management, Troy University
AWARDS: Commander’s Award for Civilian Service; Army Achievement Award (Civilian)

The challenges and rewards of OCONUS work

Ms. Susan L. Follett

Anthony Dunaway is a busy guy. As Government Purchase Card (GPC) Branch chief and supervisory procurement analyst for the 411th Contracting Support Brigade in Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, he manages a robust program of more than 1,200 managing/card accounts, supporting warfighters in the United States Forces Korea (USFK) theater of operations. The operational tempo is high, with many of the situations supported by Dunaway and his team time sensitive or needed immediately to fulfill mission requirements.

Between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016, the branch reviewed and monitored 32,446 transactions that totaled $31.44 million and processed more than 2,300 cardholder and billing official applications. The branch also provided GPC live training to more than 1,500 cardholders, billing officials and resource managers, and provided timely GPC support to 28 rotational units supporting the 2nd Infantry Division. For that work, the branch received an exceptional rating during a July/August 2016 Procurement Management Review conducted by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement.

“We support all of the branches of service here in USFK, so the phone calls, emails, office visits and requirement requests flow in at a high rate each and every day,” said Dunaway. “Something new or different always seems to surface and it’s never the same thing twice. I’ve never had a job where I worked hard all day and left to go home with more work to do the next day—and there is never an idle moment.”

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
Open lines of communication keeping training current are priorities for Dunaway’s GPC branch, given high turnover in the customer base. Many of the cardholders Dunaway assists are in Korea on one-year tours. (Photos by Lt. Col. Steven D. Gutierrez, 411th CSB)

The biggest challenges he faces? Turnover and time difference. “A large number of our customers are here on one-year tours, so once we establish a good rapport, they leave and it is déjà vu all over again,” said Dunaway. “We do our best to overcome this by keeping the communications open so we are prepared for the transitions to make them as seamless as possible.”

The time difference in Seoul—14 hours ahead of EST—adds another layer of complexity. “Sometimes it is a challenge to communicate with vendors that are located stateside,” he said. “And, because we are geographically separated from the United States, the shipping and receiving of critical parts can take longer than desired.”

Given the OCONUS location, finding a vendor to meet some of the requirements can be a challenge, Dunaway said, and the language barrier often further complicates things. To combat that hurdle, the team includes people fluent in English and Korean. Having a good team of attorneys also helps, he added. “The business practices here are much different than what I was accustomed to: Local vendors will attempt to ‘reward’ the procuring activities with gifts during the holidays. Fortunately, we get great ethics briefings from our offices of counsel on how to handle those situations.”

Dunaway came to the Army after a three-decade career in the Air Force. “I initially planned to join for four years, as a way to pay for my college education. I left 24 years later, having also earned an MBA, so I’d say it was an excellent decision.” He retired in 2010 at the rank of master sergeant, and most of his career was spent in weapons and acquisition logistics. During his Air Force service, he was a billing official in a program that was managed by the Army and he became interested in how well the Army supported Air Force requirements. “When I retired from the Air Force, I had an opportunity to work for the Army in the GPC program, and it has been a pleasure right from the beginning,” he said.

The transition from one branch of service to another has been relatively seamless, he added. “There is really not much difference between Army contracting and Air Force contracting, with the exception of service-unique requirements that allow the Air Force to procure items that the Army doesn’t and vice versa,” he said.

Helping to further smooth that change was an early supervisor: Andre Pelliccia, GPC of the the Business Oversight Branch in the Fort Worth District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “He was an excellent mentor, as he assisted me with the change from the Air Force climate to the Army climate, and he was also an advocate of education and self-improvement,” Dunaway said. “Acquisition is a constantly changing environment, so it is important to continuously learn to keep up with the changes.”

For Dunaway, the best learning opportunity so far has been the Army Acquisition Intermediate Contracting Course; he was able to obtain all of the necessary requirements to achieve Level II certification in contracting in four weeks. But one class isn’t sufficient, he noted. “Earn a bachelor’s degree in business and perhaps a master’s degree as well,” he said. “And keep an open mind: Acquisition is fast-paced. Take advantage of all of the education and training opportunities that the Army has to offer.”

TRAINING CARDHOLDERS AND CUSTOMERS
The GPC Branch provides live training to cardholders. Dunaway and his team ensure that cardholders use their government-issued cards appropriately— work that won recognition from the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement.

This article was orignially published in the January – March 2017 issue of Army AL&T Magazine.

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By Susan L. Follett

FORT BELVOIR, Va.—The Secretary of the Army has announced its FY16 Awards for Excellence in Contracting, honoring Army contracting organizations and individuals who’ve exemplified excellence in productivity, process improvement and quality enhancement.

The U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC) – Rock Island, Illinois, netted three awards: an individual honor for outstanding contract specialist and group awards for contingency contracting and systems, research and development, logistics support (sustainment) contracting.

More than 60 nominations were received for the FY16 awards, which span 13 honors in three categories. Mary P. Hernandez, ACC-Warren, Michigan, was named Contracting Professional of the Year, and Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Girard was named Contracting Noncommissioned Officer of the Year. He’s with the 918th Contracting Battalion, Mission & Installation Contracting Command-Fort Carson.

For more information on the awards, go to http://asc.army.mil/web/contracting-awards/. The full list of honorees follows.

Barbara C. Heald – Deployed Civilian
Natanielle L. Little, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Transatlantic Afghanistan District, Bagram, Afghanistan

Outstanding Contract Specialist/Procurement Analyst:
Michal DeBisschop, Army Contracting Command (ACC) – Rock Island, Illinois

Exceptional Support of the Ability One Program:
Guy Hunneyman and Evangelina C. Tillyros, ACC-New Jersey

Contracting Professional of the Year:
Mary P. Hernandez, ACC-Warren, Michigan

Contracting Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) of the Year:
Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Girard, 918th Contracting Battalion, Mission and Installation Contracting Command – Fort Carson, Colorado

Outstanding Contracting Officer Awards

Installation Level/Directorates of Contracting:
Laquita L. Mox, ACC-Redstone, Alabama

Systems, Research and Development, Logistics Support (Sustainment) Contracting:
Ercilia Del Orbe, ACC-Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland

Specialized Services and Construction Contracting:
Oksana A. Joye, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville

Contingency Contracting:
Maj. Timothy G. Godwin, 900th Contracting Battalion

Outstanding Unit/Team Awards

Installation Level Contracting Office / Directorates of Contracting:
Contracting Support Plans and Operations Division, 414th Contracting Support Brigade

Systems, Research and Development, Logistics Support (Sustainment) Contracting:
Information Technology Division, Branch D, ACC-Rock Island

Specialized Services and Construction Contracting:
Mosul Dam Team, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, PARC Winchester, Virginia

Contingency Contracting:
Field Support Directorate, ACC-Rock Island

Natanielle L. Little receives the Barbara C. Heald Award during the 2016 Army Acquisition Executive’s Excellence in Leadership Awards Ceremony, held Dec. 1, 2016 at Springfield, Virginia. Steffanie Easter, acting assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology (ASA(ALT)) and the Army acquisition executive, presented the award to Little. Also on hand for the award presentation were, from left, Christopher Lowman, acting principal deputy to the ASA(ALT); Lt. Gen. Michael E. Williamson, principal military deputy to the ASA(ALT) and Director, Acquisition Career Management; and Sgt. Maj. Rory Malloy, sergeant major to the ASA(ALT) principal military deputy.

When reality strikes in contract administration for Army helicopters, DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford fills in the gaps with real-time information and critical multifunctional expertise.

by Maj. Rob Massey and Staff Sgt. Daniel Martin

In every contracting course and every contracting office, you hear a familiar sentiment: “The perfect contract is just a modification away.” Yet even after incorporating that modification, circumstances and events inevitably will require input and intervention from the organization charged to administer the contract.

Enter the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), an organization responsible for providing contract management support to some of the most complicated contracts across DOD. A case study is the Army’s contract for the UH/HH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter. Within DCMA, the contract management office (CMO) at DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford ensures that the Army receives a high-quality product that conforms to the contract. DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft essentially is the last line of defense between the warfighter and an inferior helicopter.

Complicated aviation contracts, like the one for the Black Hawk—with the latest model entering its 15th year of production—often require expertise that is rare in the acquisition community. DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft, in Stratford, Connecticut, is able to manage the nuances of aviation-centric contracts by employing some of the best-trained and most experienced military test pilots and aviation ground support personnel available in DOD.

One of DCMA’s 46 contract management offices, the one in Stratford has existed in various capacities since the 1960s to provide support for defense contracts awarded to Sikorsky, the manufacturer of a half-dozen rotary-wing platforms including the Black Hawk. Originally Sikorsky Aircraft, the company has been an element of Lockheed Martin Corp. since November 2015. DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft provides contract oversight and flight operations support to multiple contracts that together combine to produce over 2,500 flying hours annually—more than any other office within DCMA.

BATTING A THOUSAND
Marine Col. Jack Perrin, left, commander of DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford, Army Col. Billy Jackson, PEO Aviation’s project manager for utility helicopters, and Daniel C. Schultz, president of Sikorsky, display a plaque presented to the acquisition team to mark the delivery of the 1,000th Black Hawk M-model in October 2016. Close cooperation, including co-location, between DCMA military and civilian staff and the contractor results in quick response times and efficient delivery. (Photo courtesy of Stuart Walls, Woodstock Studio)

MANY PLAYERS, ONE TEAM
Multiply the complexities of contracting by the complexities of a military helicopter, and you get an idea of the diversity of skills that DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft requires to operate successfully.

Within DCMA, government ground representatives (GGRs) are responsible for developing and implementing surveillance plans to support the contract. These comprehensive plans allow GGRs, along with quality assurance personnel, to balance resources with contract risk to ensure that the government routinely inspects the most important tasks performed by the contractor. These experts bring an aviation background to the contract administration process, not only ensuring a high-quality, conforming helicopter but also allowing them to manage the contractor’s flight operations, which is critical to ensuring a safe work environment for both government and contractor personnel. The GGR’s role in contract administration is important to reducing risk to mission, troops and funds.

The functions delegated to DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft under Part 42 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation enable the Army and the contractor to continue production in those instances that the contract could not or did not foresee. On the Army’s most recent Black Hawk production contract, DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft supports critical post-award contracting functions. Some of the more important are ensuring contractual compliance with quality and safety requirements; engineering surveillance; reviewing requests for deviation; and maintaining surveillance of flight operations at the contractor’s facilities.

To adequately support these and many other efforts, DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft leverages the collective experience of quality assurance personnel, technical engineers, industrial specialists and program integrators. The fruits of these specialists’ efforts are evident almost daily in large and small ways.

Across every tactical operating center and command post in the Army, you will hear the words, “Who else needs to know?” A smooth flow of communication is one of the primary responsibilities of program integrators at DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford. Program integrators lead integrated project teams that bring all stakeholders and functional areas to the table to address contract challenges in a timely manner.

TESTING, TESTING
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Vance Corey, a government flight acceptance pilot and government flight representative with DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford, completes a government flight acceptance test on a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter in Stratford, Connecticut. DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft’s experienced military test pilots help the contract management office perform its key function as the last line of defense between Soldiers and a helicopter that doesn’t perform as needed. (Photo courtesy of Maj. Rob Massey, DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford)

Program integrators have direct access to the contractor’s facility, including work as government acceptance pilots. Furthermore, the relationship between DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft and its supported contractor translates to close cooperation that not only helps build the team but also allows potential discrepancies in the production and test flight processes to surface quickly, preventing problems from developing and quality from slipping. The program integrators thus can provide rapid feedback to the Army customer.

Last year, during a routine weekly integrated product team meeting, the prime contractor brought to DCMA’s attention that it was no longer able to access required Army publications to support the contract effort because of changes in the Army’s forms and publication distribution process. This issue affected the contractor’s employees worldwide, including pilots and maintainers, who needed access to technical publications, forms and records. The program support team at DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft stepped in immediately to resolve the issue, working with all parties involved to establish procedures that would enable the contractor to request updated publications and forms in an organized and efficient manner through appointed government sponsors.

CONNECTIONS ARE KEY
In addition to the support DCMA provides to each individual contract delegated to it, the organization also can leverage a vast network of CMOs to support contract administration with skilled oversight. By tapping into this network of CMOs, DCMA can work across major contract efforts to solve problems.

DCMA units work closely with the procuring contracting officer of the organization that delegated the contract’s administration. In the case of the Black Hawk contract, that organization is ACC – Redstone of the U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC). However, several other contracts awarded by DOD organizations also influence and sometimes complicate production of the Black Hawk. This is where relationships among CMOs can be especially useful, in fact critical to managing contract risk.

Recently, for example, Sikorsky had to return an aircraft engine to the subcontractor for additional servicing and testing before installation. Upon completion, the engine was to be rushed back to Sikorsky’s production facility. When errors in the shipping paperwork delayed the return shipment, program integrators from DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft intervened and worked with a sister office that oversees the subcontractor to fix the errors, ensuring timely delivery and preventing any production delays.

There’s no such thing as autopilot when it comes to complex contract administration, including the post-award phase. Post-award contracting requires daily and sometimes aggressive efforts on the part of the CMO. Nonconformances in the production process, even those that may seem insignificant at the time, can manifest themselves as major costs and safety consequences later.

As an example, recently Sikorsky discovered that a grounding cable connected to the helicopters’ windshield wipers had been installed incorrectly. While the discrepancy posed no flight safety risk, DCMA and the contractor agreed to rework the discrepancy to prevent the potential early deterioration of the component. This decision ultimately will help the Army save on replacement costs.

While contract administration represents its own phase in the contracting process, DCMA is also equipped to support other contract phases, with CMOs providing the contracting officer with valuable feedback on a contractor’s performance based on their observations from walking the production line and interacting with the contractor’s functional leadership on a daily basis. Furthermore, having navigated the challenges of a contract action firsthand, the CMO is well-equipped to provide input to a follow-on contract and prevent repeat performance issues.

A MULTIFUNCTIONAL TEAM
The DCMA M-model Black Hawk team gathers in October 2016 in front of the 1,000th aircraft delivered to the Army: from left, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Mike Bobkoskie, chief of flight operations; Maj. Rob Massey, program integrator for the M-model Black Hawk; Kathy Agosto, administrative contracting officer; and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Mike Tobin, government flight acceptance pilot and deputy program integrator. (Photo courtesy of Maj. Rob Massey, DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford)

CONCLUSION
When Gen. Mark A. Milley assumed duties as the Army’s 39th chief of staff in August 2015, readiness was at the top of his priority list. Ensuring equipment readiness is no small undertaking, and for the Black Hawk, it extends well beyond the program managers in the Utility Helicopters Project Office of the Program Executive Office (PEO) for Aviation.

Contract administration is anything but routine. The support that DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft – Stratford provides allows the project office to fulfill its charter: to provide warfighters with the best equipment to meet their operational needs while actively managing all life cycle aspects of the program.

For more information, contact the DCMA chief of public affairs at mark.woodbury@dcma.mil or go to www.dcma.mil.

MAJ. ROB MASSEY is the program integrator with DCMA Sikorsky Aircraft for the Army’s UH-60M Black Hawk Program. He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School and a B.S. in pre-law from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is Level II certified in contracting and a member of the Army Acquisition Corps.

STAFF SGT. DANIEL MARTIN is the government ground representative for the Army Program Team. He has 14 years of experience in aviation maintenance and operations. He holds certifications in aircraft weight and balance, quality assurance, occupational safety and health, and hazardous materials transportation.

This article is scheduled to be published in the April – June 2017 issue of Army AL&T Magazine.

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As DOD faces a Sept. 30 deadline to be ready for its first-ever independent financial review, ACC zeroes in on contractors’ government-furnished property to improve accountability.

by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Heath M. Stone

For years, the government has authorized contractors to use or acquire its property when the contracting officer deems that doing so is in the government’s best interest. Supporting a government program as an on-site contractor requires office space. Offices, in turn, require desks, chairs, bookcases, conference tables, phones, copying machines, whiteboards—the list goes on, and much of that equipment typically belongs to the government. After all, it is in the government’s best interest to furnish the necessary equipment so that contractors can provide effective support.

But who keeps track of the government-furnished property (GFP), which is worth millions of dollars across DOD? Before 2011, contractors were paid to maintain stewardship of government property using a government-approved commercial accountability system. This left the audit trail documentation for GFP solely in the hands of the contractor. In May 2011, DOD Instruction (DODI) 5000.64, “Accountability and Management of DoD Equipment and Other Accountable Property,” laid out the requirement for the government to maintain fiduciary accounts for property provided to contractors “regardless of value,” so that the government could reconcile property in contractors’ hands with its own current records. The increased visibility of GFP at many levels, from the requiring activity to Congress, is part and parcel of a climate of greater fiscal accountability throughout DOD. In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Congress set a deadline of FY17 for DOD to have fully auditable financial statements. A first-ever DOD-wide independent audit is expected to follow in FY18.

Property book officers (PBOs) no longer remove from property book records items that the contracting officer designates to be provided as GFP. It has been a logistical challenge for them to re-establish accountability for property that was separate from the records before DODI 5000.64. In short, the services and DOD have had to take a more active role in contract property administration, as spelled out in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).

Proper accountability of GFP is critical to deter fraud, waste and abuse. A recent U.S. Central Command investigation into inaccurate contractor property records for more than $1.3 million in GFP underscored the need for government management controls to prevent or detect impropriety. Unfortunately, the processes and procedures to follow in accounting for GFP are less than crystal clear.

READY TO SHIP
Contractor-acquired property and material to be acquired, received, stored, maintained, moved and consumed for contract performance in support of LOGCAP contingency operations in Africa are held in Entebbe, Uganda. According to PBOs and property administrators, a thorough makeover of Army regulations would help with synchronizing the property accountability efforts of the logistics, acquisition and contractor stakeholders. (Photo by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Heath M. Stone)

A WORK IN PROGRESS
Property administration, as a FAR requirement, will be an Army mission whenever GFP is provided to a contractor. The required contracting support brigade mission essential task list (METL) for contingency contracting administration services supporting industrial and/or contract property management is a new mission.

The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) previously performed these tasks for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) and other contracts, but it has handed the contract administration function back to the Army, limiting DCMA’s role to providing supplemental personnel at the Army’s request. This has called for providing a number of incentives to obtain civilian property administrators with the skillsets necessary for these contingency operations.

For the sake of this article, quartermasters are uniformed property administrators consisting of property book technicians: warrant officers, Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) 920A; and unit supply sergeants, MOS 92Y. Because of the inherent knowledge required, they are best-positioned to perform the new property administration requirements and help the Army prepare for the 2017 congressional audit deadline by identifying, streamlining and executing property administration in garrison and contingency environments.

Every cost-reimbursable, time-and-materials, labor-hour, fixed-price and purchase-order contract that authorizes the acquisition of government property or provides GFP requires a property management system analysis (PMSA). This analysis, to be completed only by the contracting officer or personnel certified at Level II under the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act, requires extensive logistical knowledge that quartermaster Soldiers inherently possess. PMSAs ensure that the contractor takes corrective actions to decrease the government’s risk in how the contractor is managing, maintaining and disposing of GFP.

CLEARER GUIDANCE NEEDED

Employing quartermaster Soldiers to perform property administration functions provides the Army a great return on the investment in their logistics and acquisition training and knowledge. Currently, however, no policy exists to certify uniformed property administrators. The Defense Acquisition University needs to update its guidance on the acquisition, technology and logistics workforce position category description to enable career development and certification for uniformed industrial property management specialists and property administrators.

COMPUTER DEPLOYMENTS
Training Support Center Benelux supply technician Stephanie Pippenger sorts hard drives in October 2016 as U.S. government employees and Belgian contractors deploy new computers in the Digital Training Facility at Chièvres Air Base, Belgium. Almost $100,000 worth of equipment was installed in the Chièvres facility. (U.S. Army photo by Visual Information Specialist Pierre-Etienne Courtejoie)

Multiple laws and regulations mandate that industrial and contract property administrators be career-coded as acquisition positions to be certified, and they must be certified to perform all required tasks. The certification provides the authority for the individuals to complete the contract property management tasks without adding work for the contracting officer. Certifying uniformed property administrators will ensure that the Army has the required number of qualified uniformed property administration personnel ready to deploy in support of contingency operations without having to provide expensive incentives for civilian property administrators.

Some quartermasters are opposed to property administration assignments, as the job removes them from “typical” logistics functions and requires more analysis and administrative tasks. Property administration requires more of our quartermasters, asking them to broaden their apertures, anticipate problems and correct them by working with key stakeholders throughout the contract’s life cycle.

The U.S. Army Human Resources Command and the U.S. Army Quartermaster School are collaborating to competitively select the right people with the right skills and the right career timelines. In the near future, quartermasters seeking these assignments may encounter eligibility criteria and requirements for career timing; these are being considered for inclusion in DA Pamphlet 600-3, “Commissioned Officer Professional Development and Career Management,” and DA Pamphlet 600-25, “U.S. Army Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Guide.”

This new property administration METL requires an evaluation of the training at the Quartermaster School to determine what adjustments are necessary to ensure that all quartermaster Soldiers understand how to account for contractor property. Property administration requires PBOs to catalog and add property designated to become GFP to the fiduciary account. At the inception of a contract, the assumption is that all GFP is already on a fiduciary record before being provided to the contractor. If it is not, the property will need to be cataloged and added to the record.

These transactions will increase PBOs’ workload during contract inception and during changes throughout the period of performance. However, the most significant increase in workload will occur during contract termination, when potentially thousands of new lines of property are adjusted from contractor-acquired property (CAP) to GFP.

During contract execution, there is no authority to add CAP to the fiduciary records. However, CAP becomes GFP when a new contract is awarded even if the contract goes to the same contractor. A good practice is to have the contractor submit a CAP list to the PBOs for cataloging well before the contract transition, as the cataloging process through the Army Enterprise Systems Integration Program could take weeks or months to complete. In addition, the PBO does not typically add property to a property book record that does not meet accountability requirements in Army Regulation (AR) 735-5, “Property Accountability Policies,” and AR 710-2, “Supply Policy Below the National Level.”

However, DODI 5000.64 requires a fiduciary record for property provided to contractors regardless of value. This conflict between DOD and Army regulations has created some resistance in the PBO community. However, the DOD guidance is clear: Property provided to the contractor requires the establishment of fiduciary records, regardless of accountability requirements for different property criteria in AR 735-5 and AR 710-2.

PATH TO RESPONSIBILITY
Advanced individual training Soldiers travel down a path while on patrol during the Quartermaster Situational Training Exercise. The four-day Quartermaster School culminating event at Fort Lee, Virginia, is designed to reinforce lessons learned during MOS and warrior tasks and battle drill training. Revised property administration METL requires a training evaluation at the Quartermaster School to ensure that quartermaster Soldiers understand contractor property accountability. (Photo by Amy Perry, U.S. Army Garrison Fort Lee Public Affairs Office)

ELIMINATING ‘SUBMIT AND FORGET’
Some Army commands have made individual strides to meet property administration and accountability requirements. However, standardization cannot be expected or accomplished until AR and pamphlet changes are incorporated. Each command’s records vary, along with the accountability documentation and philosophies for fiduciary accounts. Most commands are using hand receipt procedures derived from best practices for contractor fiduciary records, including fiduciary account submission checklists and contractor fiduciary account in-and-out briefs containing derived property administration procedures, duties and responsibilities of key stakeholders.

One of the key processes the PBO community needs the Army to standardize is how to make changes to the fiduciary record. Since the property administrator is responsible for submitting documentation for fiduciary account changes (decreases and increases) to the PBO, what do the change documents need to contain? The data elements required by AR or FAR? How should the change documents be formatted? Should they be AR-required forms, which may not be contractual if requested from the contractor, or the entire GFP list received from the contractor? Many property administrators submit the changes to the PBO in the form of the entire government property list.

In some cases, contract property is not brought to record or adjusted because property administrators take a “submit and forget” approach in establishing and adjusting fiduciary accounts. In this case, the PBO is expected to review potentially thousands of lines of property to identify changes and update the fiduciary record; there is no automated system for doing so. On the other hand, if the property administrators are expected to submit to the PBO only the changes from the contractor list, they will need to review the many lines of property to identify any changes and submit only the updates to the PBO to adjust the fiduciary record.. Property administrators do not have an automated system either, and must use a manual, spreadsheet-driven, labor-intensive process that they lack the resources to efficiently perform. Without a standardized system, either manual process is highly vulnerable to inaccuracies caused by human error.

CONCLUSION
Proper accountability of GFP is critical to deter fraud, waste and abuse. It ensures that management controls exist to preclude or detect impropriety and assists investigations into inaccurate contractor property records. To support this effort, the U.S. Army Contracting Command (ACC) has recommended changes to AR 735-5, Paragraph 2-5, which would result in including 15 more pages of information necessary to standardize GFP accountability Armywide. It has submitted those recommendations to HQDA G-4 for implementation in regulations now undergoing revision.

This recommendation covers details and information on the standardization of submitted changes to the fiduciary records and provides further account and audit documentation guidance. Disseminating, publishing and standardizing these processes are necessary to support current and future Army audit readiness. Both the PBO and property administrator communities agree that cohesive and comprehensive changes to Army regulations will go a long way in synchronizing the property accountability efforts of our logistics, acquisition and contractor stakeholders.

For more information, contact the author at heath.m.stone.mil@mail.mil or DSN 314-637-7427.

This article is scheduled to be published in the April – June issue of Army AL&T Magazine.

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 3 HEATH M. STONE is an industrial property management specialist assigned to the 414th Contracting Support Brigade in Vicenza, Italy. He holds two associate degrees, one in supply chain management and the other in management and supervision, from Coastline Community College. His professional designations include demonstrated senior logistician from the International Society of Logistics and certified logistics associate from the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council. The ACC recognized his commendable property administration performance by naming him the 2015 Non-Acquisition Officer of the Year. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Air Assault School, Primary Leader Development Course, Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Course, Warrant Officer Candidate School, Warrant Officer Basic Course and Warrant Officer Advanced Course. He received the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (3 bronze oak leaf clusters), Army Commendation Medal (3 bronze oak leaf clusters), Army Achievement Medal (3 bronze oak leaf clusters), and Army Good conduct medals and a Combat Action Badge.

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By Ashley Tolbert

FORT BELVOIR, Va. (April 4, 2017) – The deadline to submit applications for this year’s military occupational specialty (MOS) 51C reclassification board has been extended to June 21, 2017, and Soldiers with 10 to 13 years of service may now be considered.

This will be the only reclassification board for the year, prompting changes to the time in service requirement and the application extension to provide eligible noncommissioned officers (NCOs) as much time as possible to apply. Previously, NCOs with more than 10 years of experience weren’t eligible for reclassification.

“We are extending the deadline to ensure that we are getting the best and brightest for the Army Acquisition Corps,” said Sgt. Maj. Joey Barden, 51C proponent sergeant major.

Those interested in applying for reclassification are invited to connect with a member of Barden’s team on a new page in MilSuite (Common Access Card login required) and ask any questions they may have. “This isn’t meant to replace phone calls or emails,” said Barden. “Rather, it provides an opportunity to speed our response time and answer those questions that many Soldiers have who are considering or are in the process of applying.”

The primary mission for 51C NCOs is to serve as a member or NCO in charge of a contracting team, battalion or brigade in contingent and non-contingent environments. The 51C NCO provides support for units and organizations involved in Army operations and joint, intergovernmental, interagency and multinational operations. In that capacity, the 51C NCO develops theater contract support plans, provides theater contract support and conducts contracting operations assessments. The 51C NCO is also expected to provide sound business advice to supported units and organizations.

Details on how to apply can be found on the MOS 51C webpage.

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By Tristin Maximilian

FORT BELVOIR, Va.—Two noncommissioned officers (NCOs) have been selected for the Army’s Advanced Civil Schooling (ACS) program, offering the opportunity to pursue advanced degrees in acquisition and business disciplines at civilian universities.

Staff Sgt. Kailey Good-Hallahan (Courtesy photo)

“The Army offers so many untapped opportunities to service members. There truly is no other program for enlisted service members like ACS,” said Staff. Sgt. Kailey Good-Hallahan, one of the selectees. She will pursue an MBA with a focus on supply chain and operations at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in the next year.

Good-Hallahan  serves as a contracting NCO for the 715th Senior Contingency Contracting Team at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. “Being able to attend school full time while receiving the same level of face-to-face interaction with industry as my civilian counterparts will pay dividends later in life,” she said.

Staff Sgt. Gloria Gutierrez, assigned to the 641st Contracting Team at the Regional Contracting Center – Kuwait on Camp Arifjan, was also selected to attend ACS. “During my time in the Army, I have learned the importance of finding ways to better myself,” she said. “I trust this program will help better prepare NCOs to become more proficient within a continuously evolving Army.” Gutierrez will pursue an MBA at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.

NCOs have always been permitted to apply to ACS, but when the 51C military occupational specialty (MOS) was in its infancy, understrength contracting commands couldn’t support NCOs to going to ACS.

Staff Sgt. Gloria Gutierrez (Courtesy photo)

“Now we are at a point where we are over-strength and we can support NCOs going off to do this,” said Sgt. Maj. Joey Barden, proponent sergeant major for the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center.

Contracting NCOs often perform the same tasks as acquisition officers, including cost pricing, unbalanced pricing and regression analysis. As a result, Barden noted, NCOs should have the same level of training as the officers.

The ACS program is designed to enhance the credibility and capability of the contracting NCO. “This is the single most valuable program we offer our NCOs,” said Barden. He strongly encouraged eligible NCOs to apply. The deadline for submitting applications for next year is Jan. 15, 2018. Those interested should contact Sgt. 1st Class Gentle Gladney at 703-664-5718 or email gentle.m.gladney.mil@mail.mil for additional information.

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FORT BELVOIR, Va. (Aug 24, 2017)—The 51C Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) reclassification board concluded here last month and selected six candidates for reclassification.

U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center (USAASC) congratulates the following Soldiers for their selection:

• Staff Sgt. Tony Badger
• Sgt. Adrian Baladad
• Sgt. Josephine Bergren
• Staff Sgt. Henry Caldera
• Staff Sgt. Jacqueline Garza
• Sgt. Amanda Payton

This was the only board of the fiscal year convened by the USAASC and administered by the 51C Proponent Office. Selectees and non-selectees soon will receive an email with post-board guidance.

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PM Mission Command gave potential developers of the new artillery command and control system more time, more information and more latitude to approach the problem in new ways. In return, the government got more competitive proposals and a more flexible solution that ideally will yield a more user-friendly interface.

by Ms. Sandra Lindecamp, Ms. Elizabeth A. Keele and Mr. Dan Lafontaine

Like any complex command-and-control system, the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) has undergone multiple software upgrades and enhancements since its first fielding in 1995. AFATDS provides critical fires command-and-control capability for the Army and Marine Corps, and the upgrades have included automatic processing of fire requests, munition updates, the generation of multiple tactical fire mission solutions, the monitoring of mission execution, and the support, creation and distribution of fire plans. The system’s original developer performed all of the upgrades, which posed several problems:

• Thirty years of development resulted in many software upgrades and solutions being built on after initial fielding, which resulted in a nonmodular code base (the source code for the software) and increased the cost and complexity of sustainment. Nonmodular code is highly interdependent and often affected by long processing times—problems exacerbated by the added-on upgrades.
• The previous architecture was not designed to withstand or address cybersecurity threats.
• The code base includes approximately 16 programming languages, many of which are not currently in wide use across industry. As a result, it’s difficult and costly to find personnel with the right experience to work on the system.
• A complex system with only one graphical user view requires users to filter extensive data to perform required functions—performing a function with AFATDS requires numerous mouse clicks and opens several browser windows—as well as 160 hours of new equipment training.

PINPOINT ACCURACY
Lt. Col. Christopher Anderson, product manager for fire support command and control, discusses the new Precision Fires-Dismounted (PF-D) system during a visit from Steffanie B. Easter, acting assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, May 11. The new PF-D has greatly expanded the ability of forward observers to conduct completely digital calls for fire, providing field artillery Soldiers with precise target coordinates. (U.S. Army photo by Dan Lafontaine, PEO C3T Public Affairs)

The Army faced the additional challenge of migrating AFATDS to its common operating environment (COE), an initiative that is transitioning stand-alone warfighting capabilities to integrated software applications. To support a more intuitive user-software interface and to enable the migration of AFATDS to the COE, the Army recently executed an innovative competitive contract and procurement approach for the next generation of AFATDS software.

More than 4,000 AFATDS systems have been fielded worldwide. The program is managed by the Project Manager for Mission Command (PM MC), assigned to the Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T). Over the past year, PM MC, as well as its Product Manager for Fire Support Command and Control, developed an acquisition strategy with the goal of improving cost, performance and schedule for the next generation of AFATDS, 7.0, which is projected to begin fielding in 2020.

This approach, which mirrors software development best practices, opened up competition for software development and enabled the Army to reduce the training burden associated with AFATDS. It aimed to do so by increasing application usability through a role-based capability with a more intuitive user interface; providing embedded training capabilities; creating a service-oriented architecture that reduces sustainment costs; and incorporating COE services to allow the Army to migrate to a common infrastructure, thereby reducing the need to develop, manage and sustain multiple stand-alone systems.

The strategy included asking industry to develop innovative approaches to modernizing the existing AFATDS cyclical code (which totaled more than 7 million lines), enhancing usability, reducing the training burden and ensuring integration into the COE infrastructure. It also sought sustainment efficiencies as the code had become more difficult and costly to maintain after more than 30 years of add-on development.

The end goal is that AFATDS 7.0 will modernize the code, enhance modularity and incorporate more modern programming languages, resulting in cost avoidances and efficiencies during sustainment. It also will feature a service-oriented architecture that organizes services and functions into layers to reduce the complexity of the code and system architecture.

Additional cost avoidances will be realized by reducing the AFATDS training burden by incorporating TurboTax-like training capabilities and a more user-friendly graphical user interface. For example, a user learning a task can watch a 30-second video showing what steps to perform, request a simulation of the task, or request a detailed 30-minute video. It also provides an avatar trainer that can track movements and progression through training simulations.

These upgrades will capitalize on the COE infrastructure to avoid the duplication of cost associated with a redundant AFATDS-specific infrastructure.

To achieve these goals, PM MC took the somewhat unusual step of releasing source code and all requirements to industry for an extended period of time via a secure means. That step paid off, resulting in the outcome the team was aiming for.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE
Spc. Vincent Ventarola, assigned to Field Artillery Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, fires an M777A2 Howitzer during Dynamic Front II, conducted March 6-9 in the Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. The exercise enabled the U.S., Germany and Czech Republic to synchronize their artillery capabilities. Novel approaches to acquisition will make the software supporting artillery command and control easier to use, upgrade and sustain. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn, 2nd Cavalry Regiment Public Affairs)

FOSTERING INNOVATION

The AFATDS 7.0 solicitation marks the first time an AFATDS development effort had been competed through full and open competition since its inception in 1981. Therefore, in alignment with DOD’s Better Buying Power initiatives, the Army’s first step was to maximum competition, as well as to encourage high-quality and innovative proposals.

To accomplish this, PM MC took three additional market research steps, compared with typical solicitations, for AFATDS 7.0. First, the team posted a sources sought notice and then two iterations of requests for information (RFIs) on the Federal Business Opportunities website for eight months before a draft request for proposal (RFP) was released. In addition, the government publicized the effort with two advanced planning briefings to industry. These extra steps stoked interest among industry and provided detailed information about AFATDS requirements and government goals that better informed innovative proposal development.

With extra time and additional opportunities to learn about the government’s needs, industry was able to invest more time and effort in responding to the AFATDS 7.0 RFP, and the government was able to capitalize on industry’s pre-award innovation.

 CRACKING OPEN THE CODE

PM MC took a significant step to spur industry innovation by releasing the latest version of the government-owned AFATDS source code to all potential offerors with the first RFI. Releasing the code was critical to ensure a level playing field among industry after more than 30 years of a single AFATDS developer.

This release of government intellectual property was a sharp departure from contracting norms. However, it allowed industry to become familiar with the code base it would be charged with modernizing. Further, because the government allowed industry to retain the code for eight months before initial proposals, industry was able to experiment with multiple modernization approaches and define modernization risk. This allowed offerors to weigh modernization approaches and choose the lowest-risk solution based upon their unique capabilities—a significant benefit to the government because it allowed for the identification and the mitigation of risk before actual contract execution.

As the source code was released to potential vendors, PM MC took the unique step of partnering with academia to review the AFATDS code to ensure it could be modernized efficiently. This partnership, with computer science experts at the University of Texas (UT), was initiated because the Army lacked the internal expertise to effectively evaluate whether the source code could be successfully upgraded. PM MC contacted the Army Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which recommended UT because of an existing relationship with the university. UT experts analyzed the code and outlined viable modernization options given the state of the code and the Army’s requirements and goals. Additionally, UT provided a number of risk-mitigation strategies.

Additionally, the senior computer scientist who performed the analysis supported the source selection board during proposal review and has been retained to provide ongoing support as the Army executes the contract. The UT expert provided advisory services on the feasibility of approaches, the current state of the code base and the overarching goals of modernization during the proposal review process. Those contributions ultimately helped the government understand what was technically feasible and gave the government the foundation needed to evaluate industry proposals and determine whether industry innovation successfully balanced cost, schedule and performance risks.

TEAMING UP
Sgt. Johnnie Morton, part of a gun crew assigned to Field Artillery Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, loads a 155mm artillery round onto a M777A2 Howitzer during Dynamic Front II. In updating artillery command and control software, PM MC used an unorthodox approach that involved developers earlier in the process and to a greater degree. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn, 2nd Cavalry Regiment Public Affairs)

BRINGING IN BEST PRACTICES

Most significantly, the Army adapted best practices from commercial IT and software and put forth a number of innovative methods on how it requested potential solutions from offerors.

First, the Army asked for a capability without directing how to achieve it, releasing a statement of objectives that only outlined the overarching modernization goals. This statement of objectives was in contrast to typical RFPs, in which the government outlines specifically what it wants from proposed solutions via a statement of work or a performance work statement. The underlying goal of the Army’s approach was to seek innovation by allowing offerors flexibility to define their own solutions, uninhibited by excessive government direction.

Second, the government performed in-depth research to develop a plan of performance-based incentives and disincentives to move industry in the direction of creative approaches. To ensure those incentives and disincentives were properly targeted at motivating industry, the acquisition team mapped out all possible incentive and disincentive scenarios for cost, performance and schedule—54 in all—as well as every possible fee industry could earn, and it graphically presented that data to demonstrate where industry should target its efforts.

Third, the government gave industry maximum flexibility to determine its own modernization strategies by requiring interested offerors to provide their own performance work statements, integrated master plans and contractor work breakdown structures with their proposals. These documents were the backbone of their proposals and gave the government considerable insight into each offeror’s proposed approach as well as a much better understanding of post-award execution and risk mitigation. Together, these activities enabled the government to better validate the soundness of these fairly complex industry proposals.

CONCLUSION

All of these efforts combined resulted in an exemplary AFATDS 7.0 acquisition. Industry seized the opportunity to be innovative, and each had a unique approach to meeting the government’s objectives. The investments made by industry exceeded expectations, resulting in unique opportunities to decrease risk in a pre-award environment and realize greater efficiencies post-award. In the end, four offerors submitted proposals and a different company than the incumbent was selected as the contract awardee. The awardee surpassed government’s expectation for implementing innovation and flexibility.

For more information, go to PEO C3T’s website at https://www.army.mil/peoc3t.

SANDRA LINDECAMP is Acquisition Branch chief for PM MC. She holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Maryland University College. She has served as an Army warranty contracting officer for more than 12 years and has been assigned to PM MC for the last six years. She is an Army Acquisition Corps member and is Level III certified in contracting and in program management.

ELIZABETH A. KEELE is an acquisition consultant for G2 Software Systems Inc., providing support to PM MC. She holds a B.A. in political science from National University and has 12 years of experience assisting the Army and Navy in developing and executing acquisition strategies. Ms. Keele has been recognized for her outstanding service throughout her career; most notably, she was part of a team that received the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Lightning Bolt Award. She holds a Lean Six Sigma green belt.  

DAN LAFONTAINE, a public affairs specialist with DSA Inc., provides contract support to PM MC. He holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Richmond and has 10 years of experience in Army public affairs as a writer and editor.

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The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa Contingency Contracting Office (CCO) initiated and organized a vendor day at Mogadishu International Airport, Somalia, July 12.

Engaging employment from local businesses helps shape the environment of the U.S. and its regional partners through relationships and agreements, which builds trust, dependability and shared security interests.

According to CJTF-HOA contracting officer U.S. Army Maj. Curtis Sampson, the groundwork for this initiative was laid before his April 2017 arrival to Camp Lemonnier, and the contracting office leadership fully supported the idea of helping open the local vendor market in Mogadishu.

“This effort stemmed from a proposal to decrease the number of items being shuttled from here to Mogadishu via U.S. aircraft,” said Sampson.

The CJTF-HOA/CCO recognizes that employing local vendors is a win-win for both the vendor and the U.S. military, as this supports both the local economy and increases cost effectiveness.

“The vendor day in Mogadishu was a key event in CJTF-HOA’s on-going effort to systematically develop local African vendor markets to help us achieve responsive and cost-effective distribution of supplies and services for U.S. forces operating in East Africa,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Robert Carroll, CJTF-HOA CCO director.

By operating with provincial business, the U.S. government will likely save costs incurred by the transfer of items by air that could be locally sourced instead. Having a variety of vetted businesses to work with is also beneficial for cost savings.

“We had one or two large companies that we were working with, but we wanted to see if we could really open the market and double or triple that number,” Sampson said.

Using a previous list of merchants, the CJTF-HOA contracting office was able to contact 34 vendors in the local area. Ultimately, 17 vendors attended the event. And after a brief introduction, vendors provided the contracting office their business portfolio. In return, the contracting office provided sellers with guidance on how to access U.S. government request for solicitations.

“We needed an outlet for smaller local vendors to become aware of potential contracts CJTF-HOA intends to award,” Carroll said. “To meet this need, we established a CJTF-HOA Contingency Contracting Office Facebook page, at first focused on the Djiboutian marketplace.”

He continued by stating that in the deliberately engaged markets, including Mogadishu, the Facebook page has proven to be an effective and efficient method to advertise contracts and maximize competition. This seems to be especially true for smaller vendors who can now efficiently receive and directly respond to contract solicitations.

Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa hosted a successful vendor day in Mogadishu, Somalia, July 12, 2017. This event offered an opportunity for U.S. Army Maj. Curtis Sampson, CJTF-HOA contracting officer from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, to meet with Somali businesses and explore the possibilities of sourcing services locally, saving time and expense in the long run. This also promotes stability and economic growth within the CJTF-HOA area of responsibility. Sixteen local vendors came together and received information on the workings of the U.S. contracting systems, with the aim to aid in streamlining access for Somali businesses to competitively compete for contracts. (Courtesy photos provided by U.S. Army Maj. Curtis Sampson/released)

Many of the items that CJTF-HOA is looking to procure includes heavy equipment items, such as bulldozers, front-end loaders and dump trucks. Also, construction materials and leased vehicles are commonly on the list of vital articles sought by the U.S. in East Africa. In addition to physical items, logistics companies and construction personnel are entities that Sampson said would most likely be requested.

“Through our new system, we’ve opened it up to more vendors so that they have the opportunity to win a government contract – especially for these smaller companies,” he said.

After the solicitation is posted on the social media site, companies can submit a proposal stating what they can do, how they are going to do it, when it can be done, and the charge. The customer looking for the object or labor is presented with the specifications and then decide which company to hire. Having ranges of timelines, operations and prices allows the U.S. government greater selection, which can lead to selection of the most cost-effective bid.

The CJTF-HOA Contracting Office considers this a win-win scenario: The U.S. can see a decrease in cost for the mission-essential items and services they need and, in turn, smaller local business can get contracts with the U.S. government.

“One of our vendors at the event was so excited to have us there because he could never get a solicitation or a quote because his business is so small,” Sampson said. “He said he felt what we did was great. Instead of waiting on a larger business to pose the solicitation, he can now go on our Facebook page and do it himself.”

Businesses in the Mogadishu area interested in viewing solicitations by the CJTF-HOA Contracting Office can go to: www.facebook.com/cjtfhoa.cco.7.

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PEO EIS’ Defensive Cyber Operations office is achieving rapid acquisition of constantly evolving IT by using consortium-based other transaction authority.

by Lt. Col. Scott Helmore and Tom Cole, Brig. Gen., USA (Ret.)

How to acquire and provide capability better, faster and cheaper has been a consistent theme in defense acquisition for decades. In this era of cyber, information technology (IT) and software-intensive systems, technology moves faster than the traditional acquisition system can support. Traditional timelines for requirements, funding, development, production and fielding span years. By the time systems are delivered to Soldiers, the need they were designed to fill may be several years old.

This problem has confounded Army leadership, which demands a more expedited acquisition system that can measure success in months or less. One example of a more expedited acquisition approach is underway in Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO), part of the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS). DCO is implementing an acquisition strategy that incorporates the use of consortium-based other transaction authority (OTA) to inform requirements. The result is to deliver early capabilities with the acquisition efficiency necessary to provide a suite of defensive cyber capabilities in a relatively short amount of time.

In December 2016, the Army acquisition executive formed Product Manager DCO within PEO EIS, designating it as the office responsible for nontactical materiel solutions to counter cyber threats. DCO is a capability provider for the Army’s cyber protection brigades, teams and other cyber mission forces operating in a complex multidomain battlespace. The immediate challenge facing DCO is how to provide effective and relevant tools in a timely manner.

The concept of operations for defensive cyber is complex, with capabilities dispersed across the battlespace and continually adapting to an evolving threat. To accommodate this environment, DCO capabilities and requirements need to address passive and active threats as well as multidomain integration. They need to focus on protecting data, networks and net-centric operations. Finally, they must be interoperable with other IT and software-dependent systems.

The proper identification of DCO requirements and their operational interrelationships is difficult to conceptualize and can be extremely labor intensive. To help overcome this challenge, DCO recognized that rapid prototyping, with early and continuous collaboration with industry, is essential to effective delivery of cyber capabilities. DCO is using the Consortium for Command, Control and Communications in Cyberspace (C5), established in September 2011 by Army Contracting Command – New Jersey, to enable this collaborative prototyping model to provide innovative solutions quickly to the Soldier. The C5 OTA provides government offices with the necessary problem-solving environment, leveraging nontraditional defense contractors, small businesses and more traditional defense partners.

Product Manager DCO’s mission is to provide essential capabilities to Army cyber protection teams in a streamlined, efficient and integrated approach. Each system in the DCO family of 11 systems can operate autonomously or be combined into an integrated capability. (Graphics by Product Manager DCO)

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

DCO is focused on providing capabilities to address the 2016 Joint Staff-approved DCO Information Systems Initial Capabilities Document (ICD). This ICD uses the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System IT Box method, an adaptable and flexible requirements approach that provides rapid capabilities to the Soldier through use of a further delegated requirements process. Under the IT Box, services are delegated the approval for all derived requirements within the limits of specified cost and scope thresholds. The IT Box establishes the overarching authority to create the DCO family of systems (currently, there are 11).

The 11 systems comprise six initial programs of record, all expected to be Acquisition Category III, with an additional five programs identified for future development. The initial six capabilities focus on giving cyber protection teams platforms that provide remote access to key terrain in cyberspace. These platforms are either embedded at vital garrison locations or in tactical formations, or used as flyaway systems (that is, transportable on commercial airlines) that give the teams a foothold from which to unleash their other capabilities—cyber protection team tools, mission planning capability.

In addition to these platforms, the initial DCO capabilities provide the early warning or reconnaissance capability via the Army’s Big Data Platform. This platform monitors cyber data, performs analysis and provides cyber defenders with an aggregation capability that is always looking for the unknown. To perform missions, whether on-site or remotely, cyber defenders need effects (the ability to deny, degrade, disrupt, destroy and manipulate), which are provided through a variety of commercial, open source and government-owned tools. Finally, a mission planning platform—currently based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Plan X project—enables users to visualize, plan, command and manage the force.

Combining all of these capabilities gives the cyber protection teams an integrated DCO capability, in the same way that combining Stinger missiles, a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, a Sentinel radar, and forward area air defense command, control, communications and intelligence provides air defense units with short-range air defense capabilities. Each system can operate autonomously or be combined into a mutually supportive integrated capability.

To meet the flexibility of the IT Box method, Product Manager DCO has recognized that traditional acquisition processes focusing on the refinement of requirements and risk-reduction prototyping through a balance of Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) documentation and milestone decisions, contracting and documentation tasks would simply not be responsive enough. Adversaries develop new threats like the WannaCry Ransomware, Zeus Trojan, or Petya malware and exploit U.S. systems weekly; cyber defense technologies emerge just as quickly.

DCO designed an evolving acquisition strategy with continual prototyping to test technologies, inform requirements, deliver capabilities and allow rapid technology insertion, thereby staying ahead of the ever-evolving threat. A correspondingly flexible acquisition vehicle is essential to allow for innovative technology to be incorporated into evolving capability enhancements. DCO capabilities are less focused on the engineered solution than on solution modularity―how easy is it to adapt, interface or replace.

The C5 process starts with the government user providing the C5 consortium with a concise statement of needs. C5 members are notified by the Consortium Management Group, a nonprofit that administers the consortium. Members propose solutions. Army Contracting Command reviews the proposed solutions and can combine multiple ideas. The awardee, and any subcontractos, then build the government a proof-of-concept prototype and potentially continue with follow-on production. (Graphics by Product Manager DCO)

INSIDE OTA

Additionally, DCO requires a strategy that fosters continual industry collaboration and innovation to take full advantage of the problem-solving and development of effective solutions through prototyping enabled by C5 and OTA. Leveraging the skills of a consortium of experts to combine solutions into an integrated, potentially game-changing capability offers a higher potential for success than depending on a single solution provider.

The consortium-based OTA construct allows government participants to collaborate with innovative industry experts and then award an agreement to build a prototype that demonstrates solutions to problems. This strategy capitalizes on acquiring innovative cyber, IT and software-intensive capabilities comparatively quickly—a model that DCO plans to use to address evolving threats and technologies.

OTAs are not new, although most acquisition professionals have not used them. They have existed since 1958, under authority initially granted by Congress to NASA to support development of space exploration technologies with a responsive approach. Over the years, through separate and specific statutes, 11 federal departments and agencies have added OTAs to their models, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Transportation.

Recently, Congress amended and further expanded DOD’s OTA/ Section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, 10 U.S.C. §2371b, adding the ability for the government to easily transition a successful OTA prototype project directly to a follow-on production contract when the initial prototype effort is competitively awarded.

The consortium-based OTA is in itself a competitive environment. C5 is operated by a nonprofit company, Consortium Management Group (CMG), created to establish, operate and manage consortia formed under the National Cooperative Research and Production Act to use OTA. This Section 815 OTA provides the legal framework and contractual means for C5 industry members to collaborate with government customers and other members and subcontractors to provide innovative solutions for DOD. With over 400 industry representatives and established processes, C5 presents DCO with the perfect balance of a collaborative environment, access to emerging technology providers, access to nontraditional DOD innovation and the potential to team with traditional DOD industry expertise.

The consortia are designed to have broad technical focus areas to accommodate many different types of prototyping efforts. The C5 process starts when the government user, such as an Army program manager (DCO, for example) provides the C5 Government Acquisition Liaison Office at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, with a concise statement of needs. (See Figure 2.) CMG notifies the C5 consortium members of a particular need in a request for white papers; those that believe they have a good approach propose solutions. The government reviews the industry white papers and may combine multiple ideas into a best-of-breed solution for a prototype.

This is unlike the traditional process, based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation, whereby the government generally must either select the contractor that is closest to its requirement, or reject all proposals and restate the requirement—a time-consuming, “good enough” method. With the C5 OTA, the government collaborates with industry to put together a solution and optimizes innovation. Once they’ve agreed on the solution, they document their approach in an OTA. The entire process, which generally takes about 90 days, allows the awardee to build the government a proof-of-concept prototype and potentially continue with a follow-on production.

DCO delivers evolving capabilities—technology enhancements, improved efficiency or new specific-use capabilities—every three to four months. The evolving capabilities are then assessed, refined and integrated into the baseline capability. (Graphics by Product Manager DCO)

ANATOMY OF AN ACQUISITION

The DCO acquisition strategy takes advantage of flexibility in requirements and contracting methods to adopt practices from rapid software and hardware development. DCO is delivering capabilities as an evolving “build” or “drop” every three to four months—not necessarily the complete solution but rather technology enhancements, improved efficiency or new specific-use capabilities that are assessed, refined and then integrated into the baseline capability. (See Figure 3.)

By using the C5 OTA, the product office can build continuous prototypes to assess capability gaps and insert mature technologies into the baseline program. (See Figure 4.) At the same time, the OTA prototyping strategy informs the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command capabilities manager and provides the basis to discuss requirements, potentially refining key performance parameters by adjusting capability drop documentation under the IT Box construct. The end result is the most advanced capability that industry can provide, properly aligned with program requirements integrating attributes of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities in a rapidly moving acquisition scenario.

DCO expects that using C5 and incorporating OTA prototyping will result in acquisition of a capability that is:

• Better—Continuous prototyping will allow DCO to provide capabilities that respond to evolving needs and align properly with requirements.
• Faster—Timelines are at least 50 percent shorter, compared with traditional acquisition methods.
• Cheaper—Effective prototyping reduces a product’s life cycle costs by providing a tangible solution that can integrate with existing systems and be tested up front for long-term suitability before full production decisions and the associated expenses.

PM DCO, under a C5 OTA, builds continuous prototypes to assess capability gaps. (Graphics by Product Manager DCO)

CONCLUSION

In this era of expanding cyber technologies and threats, as well as IT capabilities, traditional acquisition methods and approaches generally deliver obsolete capabilities too late and over budget. Through more innovative approaches, such as use of the JCIDS IT Box requirements process and consortium-based OTA, acquisition can move closer to the goal line of a better, faster, cheaper solution that harnesses the continual emergence of new technologies and the risk reduction capabilities of prototyping.

There is no more urgent time than today, as we fight ongoing cyber battles in industry and government, for acquisition professionals to improve their use of innovative tools, such as OTAs, and maximize collaboration with industry. Through use of the C5, monthly technical interchange meetings and rapid prototyping, DCO intends to demonstrate the might of combined industry solutions and collaborative acquisition to provide the most responsive capabilities possible.

For more information on DCO, go to http://www.eis.army.mil/programs/dco. For more information on C5, go to https://c5technologies.org.

COL. SCOTT HELMORE is the product manager for the Army’s Defensive Cyber Operations office under PEO EIS. He holds an M.S. in acquisition systems management from the University of Management and Technology and a B.S. in agricultural business from Michigan State University. He is Level III certified in program management.

TOM COLE, BRIG. GEN., USA (RET.) currently serves as an independent consultant. He completed over 30 years of active Army service, with 22 years in defense acquisition. He was the program executive officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors from November 2007 to September 2010. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he holds an M.S. in aerospace engineering from San Diego State University and an M.S. in national resource strategy from the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

This article will be published in the January – March 2018 issue of Army AL&T Magazine.

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An eight-month assignment as chief of contracting in Kandahar yields an abundance of lessons learned.

by Maj. Michael Z. Keathley

The commander’s intent for U.S. Army Expeditionary Contracting Command – Afghanistan—the clear, concise expression of what the force must do and the conditions it must establish to accomplish the mission while allowing subordinates the greatest possible freedom of action—directs Soldiers and civilians to “stay left of bang,” “exploit the data” and “leave lasting footprints.”

These three axioms have worked well to produce successful contracting operations. But between the seemingly simple principles and the successes is a universe of best practices based on lessons learned in contracting environments that are anything but simple. As the ever eloquent Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

As the chief of contracting at Regional Contracting Office – South (RCO-S) at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, from November 2016 to July 2017, I had the opportunity to see these three directives in action, to apply them in the operation of RCO-S and, along the way, to survive the punches and to learn a few lessons about expeditionary contracting operations.

The chief of contracting at RCO-S is responsible for the contract administration of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) task order for southern Afghanistan. LOGCAP, dating to 2007, is the primary contract vehicle for base life-support services—everyday services such as electricity, waste management and dining facility operations—at all enduring and contingency bases in theater. RCO-S provided support and oversight of about $300 million worth of contracts in FY16. Like all other U.S. Army organizations, RCO-S had a mission statement. Ours was simple: “provide professional contracting support, on time, to the warfighter.”

RCO-S, responsible for three locations supporting nearly 8,000 Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Marines and civilians, consisted of me, my noncommissioned officer in charge, a civilian administrative contracting officer (ACO) and three quality assurance representatives (QARs). The three locations were reachable only by helicopter and required significant prior planning and coordination to schedule visits. To support the contingency contract administration services mission, I and one civilian held ACO warrants that gave us authority to direct the LOGCAP contractor. All RCO-S personnel were located at Kandahar Airfield, save one QAR who lived at one of our outlying bases.

RCO-S has been supporting contracting operations in southern Afghanistan for more than a decade, and it has seen its personnel turn over every six months to a year. My assessment of its operation when I arrived was overwhelmingly positive, but one of my intentions was to leave it better than I found it. Our day-to-day challenge was to apply the commander’s intent to accomplish our contracting mission. Managing a life-support contract serving so many people across such a large footprint is complex, to say the least. Doing so with simple guidance was fundamental to our success.

Michael A. Cooper is a DA civilian supporting Expeditionary Contracting Command – Afghanistan at Bagram Airfield. All ECC-A personnel, civilian and uniformed alike, follow their commander’s intent to “exploit the data, leave lasting footprints and stay left of bang.” Relentless oversight of the contractor and audits, both scheduled and unannounced, were key to preventing a contracting “bang” such as spoiled food in a dining facility. (U.S. Army photo by ECC-A)

USING CONTRACTOR OVERSIGHT TO AVOID THE BANG

This axiom means, essentially, to identify and mitigate issues or risks before they became problems, i.e., be proactive versus reactive. We accomplished this through relentless oversight of the contractor.

The performance work statement (PWS) for the LOGCAP contract in the south contained 75 “lines,” or services to be performed. For example, one line was waste management. The contractor was expected to execute that service in a particular way, on a particular schedule, using particular manuals and instructions, all detailed in the PWS. This “parent” service encompassed “child” services: emptying dumpsters, servicing portable toilets, operating a landfill, etc. Each service was assigned a risk rating of high, medium or low. (See Figure 1)

RATING RISK
Each service the contractor provided to installations in Afghanistan under the PWS was rated high, medium or low risk during the author’s tenure as chief of contracting at RCO-S. The author’s team conducted regular in-person checks on high-risk services like dining facilities, since they could decrease Soldiers’ readiness if not provided properly, and audited low-risk services as time allowed. (SOURCE: The author)

To ensure that the contractor upheld its end of the contract and avoided service disruptions, my QARs conducted periodic audits of performance lines. An audit was as simple as an on-the-spot observation or as detailed as reviewing the contractor’s execution of a task. My QARs conducted an average of more than 100 audits each month on most PWS lines for the LOGCAP task order, a significant increase compared with the practices of previous staffs. Our goal was to audit all high- and medium-risk services each month, including all parent and child services. That schedule gave my team frequent opportunities to witness contractor performance and to identify opportunities to mitigate perceived or possible issues.

On several occasions, particularly in dining facilities, my QARs and I made on-the-spot corrections relating to cleanliness, waste management and food preparation. For instance, we noticed that one of the dining facilities was temporarily storing food waste immediately outside the dining facility, violating a regulation that trash was to be kept at least 250 feet from the building at all times. Food waste brings insects, rats and other vermin, all unacceptable visitors in a dining facility. A quick discussion with the dining facility manager resolved the issue, which was minor but could have grown into a bigger problem if not addressed.

My office was allotted only three QARs, so we relied heavily on contracting officer’s representatives (CORs) to perform surveillance of the contractor. QARs are specially trained on how to read and interpret a PWS and are very familiar with the associated technical manuals the contractor is contractually bound to follow. A QAR is also well-versed in the basics of contracting—what is expected of the contractor as well as the government. My QARs kept the pulse of the contractor with regard to performance across the breadth of the LOGCAP contract, but I had only three of them, and they couldn’t be everywhere, all the time. By contrast, 33 CORs were available, on average, throughout our three locations; however, the execution of their COR duties was often secondary to their primary job.

The CORs monitored all performance lines and recorded their findings monthly in the COR Tool (CORT). CORT is an online database for collecting the numerous COR reports submitted each month, simple digital files answering pertinent questions on contractor performance. This database is accessible to the CORs and all contracting officers assigned to a given contract. A monthly requirement for the ACOs at RCO-S was to review these forms to ensure their validity and accuracy and accept them into CORT. This review, I found, was essential as some CORs submitted hurried work, much of which was unhelpful from a contracting perspective.

Maj. Gen. Richard G. Kaiser (left), Commanding General of Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) met with Col. Carol Tschida, Commander of the Expeditionary Contract Command-Afghanistan (ECC-A) on Dec. 1, 2016 in Bagram Airfield to discuss ways to improve the partnership between CSTC-A and ECC-A in order to keep our Soldiers and civilians ready to support the Afghan counterparts.
The ECC provides operationally-enabling direct contracting support to CSTC-A, United States Forces (USFOR-A) and other warfighters across the full spectrum of military operations in Afghanistan. The ECC soldiers and civilian contracting experts, in coordination with Contract Enabling Cell (CEC) helps CSTC-A requirements owners prepare and coordinate contracting support plans and oversight in their Train, Advise and Assist (TAA) mission. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Egdanis Torres Sierra)

My team and I quickly discovered that all the CORs had other jobs to do. For example, some CORs were infantry platoon leaders, responsible for planning and executing combat patrols almost daily. Such an operations tempo is not conducive to effective surveillance of contractors. It became apparent that each organization slated to deploy should determine what its COR requirement will be and identify individuals likely to have the most time to devote to that task. Ample foresight benefits both the unit supplying the CORs and the contracting office.

CORs in the LOGCAP environment are invaluable to the ACO. However, it was difficult to monitor all 33 of them closely. On more than one occasion, one of our CORs issued direction to the contractor, something they do not have the authority to do. In each instance, I required retraining for the COR. In retrospect, to stay left of bang, I think it would’ve been more beneficial for me to conduct that training personally. I also should’ve mandated that every COR training session contain my personal instruction regarding the limits of their authority and the potential ramifications of violating them.

COR training must explain in great detail how the contractor can misinterpret a COR’s opinion as an official government request. For example, if a COR mentions to the contractor, “The trash pickup for this site needs to be changed to one hour later,” the contractor could interpret that as direction from the government. Only a contracting officer can make such a change, so it’s important that CORs choose their words carefully when talking to the contractor.

CORT posed another time-consuming challenge for the RCO-S team. The tool is not an intuitive one, which presents problems when warfighter units arrive in theater. There is a rather steep learning curve in gaining access to the system, negotiating the site and uploading reports. Without fail, units and civilians slated to deploy should train the people who will be serving as CORs before they leave the United States, so that the CORs can hit the ground running and use the tool effectively in theater.

Cessna C-208B Grand Caravans, used by the Afghan air force as basic training aircraft and light lift aircraft, sit on the ramp at Kandahar Airfield, March 3, 2016. From November 2016 through July 2017, the author served as the chief of contracting at Regional Contracting Office – South at Kandahar Airfield, from which position he oversaw the LOGCAP contract that provides essential “life support” services like food and facilities maintenance to U.S. military installations in southern Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Robert Cloys)

VALIDATING DETAILS BIG AND SMALL

We constantly received data from the contractor indicating work it had completed and other performance markers. “Exploiting” this data consisted of delving into the finite details to validate it in an effort to prevent the contractor from painting a one-sided picture. This is not to suggest that the contractor was known to submit fraudulent data. Rather, it was important that the RCO-S team, as the administering office, be vigilant to ensure that what the contractor was providing was accurate.

Most of the data collected by the LOGCAP contractor was published daily, weekly and monthly on Contract Data Requirements Lists from the contractor’s contracts management division. For example, the contractor provided my office a daily water production report that listed how much non-potable and potable water was on hand, produced and issued. (The contractor is required to maintain a certain number of days’ worth of water supply.) Once a month, I tasked my QARs to go to the water production site while the contractor recorded the daily numbers, to observe how it was done. This task served two purposes: Besides making sure the contractor was reporting water production data accurately, it demonstrated to the contractor that its data was being monitored and validated. Service orders, work orders, fuel issuance and billeting management were other areas where we visited work sites to ensure that the contractor was reporting data accurately.

Something I could have done better to exploit data was arming myself with appropriate manuals or regulations. I routinely made unannounced observations, but rarely did so with the guidance of an appropriate supporting manual. In many parts of the LOGCAP PWS, for example, the requirement would be simply that “the contractor will conduct food service operations in accordance with Technical Bulletin, Medical (TB MED) 530, Tri-Service Food Code.” This supporting publication is over 300 pages long and discusses everything from the maximum lead content acceptable in food to the capacity of the kitchen drainage system.

In retrospect, at least weekly I should have found a specific requirement in a referenced manual, regulation or publication and checked the contractor’s compliance. This wouldn’t have been to “catch” the contractor in the wrong but simply to enforce the requirements. This also would have made it crystal clear that the government was enforcing compliance not only with the large items in the PWS, but the minutiae as well.

Left to right, Col. Joshua Burris, Expeditionary Contracting Command – Afghanistan commander; Sgt. 1st Class Katrina Tolbert, noncommissioned officer in charge for RCO-S; the author; and Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Williams. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jeremy Kinney, 410th Contracting Support Battalion)

LEAVING A BETTER SYSTEM

Before I entered the contracting career field, I served in the maneuver community as an armor officer in the 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. In that community, “leave lasting footprints” meant “constantly improve your battle position.” Looking at the concept from a contracting perspective, I considered it an edict to make systems and processes better than I found them, to improve the contracting support that each subsequent RCO chief can provide the warfighter.

Management of CORs is one area I focused on improving. At RCO-S, we managed our active CORs through face-to-face interaction and by using a few tools we created. The first tool was our COR tracker: a spreadsheet containing COR names, locations, email addresses, phone numbers, the date they were appointed as a COR and, most important, the number of days remaining until their redeployment back to their home station. This information gave us everything we needed to manage each person and to ensure that we identified their replacements before they departed theater.

Another tool in our COR management was our audit tracker. Established at RCO-S long before I arrived, it laid out all the PWS lines of the LOGCAP contract and provided the name of the COR assigned to each. It also displayed the risk rating for each PWS line, which drove the frequency of audit. The tracker also listed what audits were due for which PWS line for each month, and provided a column to indicate if the audit had been completed as well as a column for pertinent comments. These tools gave us the necessary awareness of our CORs’ status and the status of their reports. (See Figure 2)

KEEP TRACK
The audit tracker, established by previous RCO-S staff and shown here in generalized form, helped the regional contracting team manage the work of CORs scattered around southern Afghanistan installations. During the author’s time as chief of contracting, the team averaged 100 audits a month on all service lines of the task order. (SOURCE: The author)

As I write this, my RCO-S replacement and his team are carrying on with the timely contract support the warfighters in Afghanistan have grown accustomed to.

My advice to anyone going to Afghanistan as part of this support is to ask themselves these three questions once a day: What am I doing to stay left of bang? How am I exploiting the data the contractor is giving me? How am I leaving lasting footprints, and making systems and processes better for those who come after me? If all else fails, look to the contracting officers, contracting specialists and other contracting professionals to your left and right. They possess a wealth of historical know-how.

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for 16 years now, and all the while we’ve been conducting contracting support. There isn’t a single coalition service member who isn’t supported by a contract in some capacity, be it the food he eats or the electricity she uses. While the commander’s intent may change from time to time, the three simple axioms executed by the motivated, professional and knowledgeable personnel of RCO-S and U.S. Army Contracting Command have been integral to maintaining that support, whether we were aware of it or not.

For more information, contact the author at Michael.z.keathley.mil@mail.mil. For more information about Army Contracting Command, Expeditionary Contracting Command – Afghanistan’s parent command, go to http://acc.army.mil/about/.

MAJ. MICHAEL Z. KEATHLEY is the executive officer of the 922nd Contracting Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He holds an MBA in acquisitions and contract management from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a bachelor of liberal arts in criminal justice from Northwestern State University. He is Level II certified in contracting.

This article is published in the January – March 2018 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

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By Michael Bold

FORT BELVOIR, Va. (Jan. 24, 2018)—Warning that “we have no choice but to get engaged in changing the culture,” Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski outlined the Army’s plan to speed acquisition during Wednesday’s roadshow here.

The Army Acquisition Workforce’s focus, said Ostrowski, the principal military deputy to the Army acquisition executive, has to always be the U.S. Soldiers in harm’s way: “I’ve got to get that capability out there faster. I’ve got to think of innovative ways to do so. And I’ve got to make it such that Soldiers are as force-protected, as lethal and as situationally aware that we can possibly make them because we owe that to them. Changing the culture is not hard in mind, because each and every one of you sitting in this room today … you care about Soldiers. And this is about affecting Soldiers.”

The Army doesn’t need orders from DOD or legislation from Congress to start changing today, he told acquisition workers from several program executive offices (PEOs) and the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center at Fort Belvoir’s Thurman Auditorium. “There’s a lot of things that we need to do internally in the Army, that we don’t need anybody’s permission to do … we just execute,” he said.

The Army’s current acquisition culture is too tied to “following processes that don’t deliver results,” he said. It’s time to focus on products, not process. “Getting to milestone is not an achievement,” he said. “Getting [a product] kicked to the field is.”

During the standing-room only presentation—delayed by snowstorm and the government shutdown—Ostrowski noted that the Army’s current acquisition culture is too tied to processes that don’t deliver results. Success shouldn’t be measured by achieving program milestones but by getting products to the field, he noted.

The Army plan:

• Creates an Acquisition Category (ACAT) IV, for procurements under $400 million and research, development, testing and evaluation valued at less than $100 million. Under ACAT IV, milestone decision authority (MDA) and materiel development decisions are delegated to PEOs; the PEO can further delegate MDA to project managers or product directors. Ostrowski said that Brig. Gen. Anthony “Tony” Potts, PEO for Soldier, had already delegated 98 programs to ACAT IV.
• Empowers PEOs by delegating MDA of ACAT III and ACAT IV programs. But with that expanded power comes responsibility, Ostrowski warned; program managers experiencing problems need to make sure that information is going up the chain of command.
• Uses a Simplified Acquisition Management Plan (SAMP) for ACAT IV, ACAT III (unless directed otherwise) or ACAT II (as agreed to by the MDA). The SAMP is a tailorable, one-stop document that describes the overall acquisition strategy; engineering, test and sustainment plans; and cost. The 10-page form is designed as the only document the PM needs to manage the program. Currently, although waivers are available for ACT III documentation, no one applies for them. “Why?” Ostrowski asked. “It’s easier to do the documents than to ask for the permission not to. Because that’s the culture that you’ve been raised in.” If you’ve got a new project starting, Ostrowski said, “you should use a SAMP.”
• Leverages a “middle-tier” acquisition approach to create rapid prototyping and rapid fielding. This approach, Ostrowski said, is not subject to either Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System or DOD Directive 5000.01. The Rapid Capabilities Office is already using this approach, he said, “but I need other candidates.” He plans to seek legislative language that would lower the threshold for using this approach, from one to five years for full operational capability to one to three years for an initial operating capability.
• Seeks to drive down risk before milestone B. Most failures in Army acquisition, Ostrowski said, occur because a program rushed to milestone B. “Stay left of B,” he said. “Fly before you buy. Prototype your system. Make sure that your technology readiness level is good. And I mean proven. Because you burn down that risk.”
• Leverages commercial procurement and alternate contracting vehicles. The Army, he said, is setting up its own version of [an Amazon-like platform] to simplify buying commercial. “We’re stretching the bounds of some of these things,” he said.

PEO Soldier’s Jeff Witherel asks a question during the meeting, during which Ostrowski detailed a multipoint plan that creates an ACAT IV, delegates MDA of ACAT III and ACAT IV programs and expands the use of SAMPs.

On contracts, he said, “shop around.” Find out if piggybacking on another service’s or government agency’s contract is possible. Look at other contracting possibilities that can streamline acquisition.

Other transaction authority (OTA), Ostrowki said, is the “best ticket Congress could ever give us. Flat out.” OTAs have evolved from being only for prototypes to allowing them to go into low-rate initial production. Now, he said, “if you compete your OTA up front, you can go all the way to full-rate production. And that’s huge.” OTAs can’t be protested, he noted. He said he’s asked the Army Contracting Command to be sure contract officers are well-trained in the use of OTAs.

• Tailors and streamlines testing. Rather than write requirements that test to 100 percent of capabilities, test to 70 percent, he said. Then write into the contract that the contractor is responsible for bringing the capabilities up to 100 percent. Ostrowski acknowledged that building a new culture in Army acquisition won’t be easy. “There are people in this room that are not going to jump on this bandwagon,” he said. “There are people that are not in this room that are not going to jump on this bandwagon. And I will tell you that it’s just a matter of time before peer pressure points those people out. And then it’s going to be up to that person to decide to get on board or to find another place to work. Because we can’t stop now.”Ostrowski’s appearance at Fort Belvoir had been delayed twice: once by a snowstorm, and once by the government shutdown. Ostrowski assumed the role of principal military deputy to the Army acquisition executive and director of the Army Acquisition Corps in April 2017, replacing retired Lt. Gen. Michael E. Williamson. Before that, Ostrowski served as deputy commanding general for support, Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan. He served as deputy for acquisition and systems management in the Office of the Army Acquisition Executive from September 2014 to March 2016, and from April 2012 to September 2014 he led PEO Soldier at Fort Belvoir.

For more information, go to the Acquisition Streamline and Culture Initiative website.

Related links:

https://www.army.mil/article/199493/asaalt_principal_military_deputy_challenges_army_acquisition_workforce

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How a relatively little-known cost estimating tool can help prevent and correct contract overruns when other methods have fallen short.

by Mr. Anthony J. Nicolella

When a contractor regularly overruns the estimated cost of a contract, the solution may lie in a tool that the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) does not require but, when properly implemented, can make all the difference: the most probable cost estimate, known as MPC.

If you needed to buy a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system for your house, you would get prices on several, then look at future costs in terms of energy and repairs, filters, etc. Should you go for the cheapest model and keep your fingers crossed? Or should you go for a more expensive one that will actually cost less over several years because of lower additional costs? In much the same way, the government has to understand whether costs in a contractor’s cost proposal are realistic for the work to be performed.

The FAR requires the government, before awarding a cost-reimbursement contract, to perform cost realism analysis and develop a probable cost estimate for each offeror. However, neither the FAR nor the Contract Pricing Reference Guide mentions anything about using a probable cost estimate as a contract administration tool or funding baseline.

The MPC is not a cost-control panacea. It requires the proper staff, with the right training and clear lines of accountability, to achieve the desired benefits. Applied with the necessary support processes in place, however, the MPC can succeed in bringing ongoing costs under control, even in a post-award environment.

CASE IN POINT

I saw the difference the MPC can make when I was the commander of the National Training Center (NTC) Acquisition Command at Fort Irwin, California, from June 2002 to May 2005. Faced with spiraling cost overruns on our multimillion-dollar, multiyear, cost-reimbursement base operations contract, we used the MPC and the process of developing it as a contract administration tool and funding baseline and brought the contract costs under control. The experience was a case study of sorts in making the most of the MPC.

The contract in question covered everything from minor construction to crossing guards at the installation. Approximately 80 percent of the work performed on this installation was done by the contractor who held this contract.

The contractor at the time regularly overran the estimated cost of our cost-plus-award-fee contract for base operations and hit the contract price ceiling by the fourth quarter, when fiscal constraints take hold and additional funding is limited. The money for base operations contracts normally comes from operations and maintenance (O&M) funds. DOD’s Financial Management Regulation says that O&M appropriations are considered expenses that cannot cross accounting periods or fiscal years. Thus, O&M funds used to pay for services under a base operations contract are good for one fiscal year, or through Sept. 30. After this date, these funds expire and are no longer available for new awards or new contract actions.

The question was whether the contractor couldn’t manage its costs, or whether there was a problem in the MPC that the command had developed and used as a funding baseline. Even though the FAR and Contract Pricing Reference Guide did not require using the MPC process to create a probable cost estimate after the contract award, doing so was an avenue that we had found worthy of exploration.

If using the MPC before the contract award could help the government determine whether the offeror’s cost proposal was realistic, why not use the MPC after the award to determine if the contractor’s actual cost was still in line with what was proposed? If not, then the government would investigate the circumstances and take the appropriate actions.

We needed to take into consideration the characteristics of the contract, as well as the context surrounding it, when determining how best to address cost overruns.

The FAR calls for the government to “ensure timely notification by the contractor of any anticipated overrun or underrun of the estimated cost under cost-reimbursement contracts.” Depending on whether the contract is funded in a lump sum or paid out in increments, the FAR requires the contractor to notify the government when there’s reason to believe that costs will exceed 75 percent of the estimated cost of the contract. The regulation further says that under cost-reimbursement contracts, the government is not obligated to reimburse the contractor for costs incurred in excess of the estimated cost specified in the schedule.

Unfortunately, the contractor was not notifying us of overruns in a timely fashion, nor were we proactively monitoring the situation to determine the root cause of the overruns. The NTC director of resource management was funding the contract at the MPC amount, as opposed to the estimated contract cost. Since the government awards cost-reimbursement contracts based on an estimated cost with a ceiling (or a not-to-exceed price), the contractor receives reimbursement for its actual, allowable and auditable costs. This difference between the MPC amount and the estimated cost awarded can be significant, and the apparent lack of understanding of this exacerbated an already complex situation.

DIG THE DETAILS
Though the NTC had estimated the most probable cost for one contract, it was only after digging into the information that informed supported the estimate that the Acquisition Command realized the estimate was inaccurate. Part of the problem was that the team needed information from various organizations to make a cost estimate, but those organizations weren’t accountable to the acquisition team for the accuracy of the information they provided. (Image courtesy of Ilyaf/Getty Images)

RETOOLING THE PROCESS

Our first step in rectifying the situation was to examine our MPC process—both the elements internal to Acquisition Command and external information received from our customers, the NTC directorates. The command saw room for improvement in the MPC development process. Namely, it lacked trained cost and price analysts; the MPC was developed by one individual with little or no collaboration.

This soon changed for the better when we did the following:

1. Filled our vacant cost and price analyst positions with motivated, detail-oriented and highly trainable contract specialists.
2. Made the internal MPC process more of a collaborative effort. Having the right people (chief, contract administration personnel, procurement analyst, deputy and commander) participate in the contract review added value by providing much-needed leadership, direction, technical expertise and a wealth of contracting knowledge and experience.

Externally, each directorate (Information Management, Provost Marshal, Public Works, etc.) had a contracting officer’s representative (COR), who provided their cost estimate (or directorate’s MPC) to Acquisition Command. The command then used these MPCs and other data, such as technical reviews and evaluations, wage determinations and results from cost estimating reviews, to develop a single comprehensive MPC.

We soon discovered that some of the directorates’ MPCs were of poor quality, including, for example, undocumented, additional costs not in the original MPC. As with many large contracts, ours was experiencing changes that were expanding the actual costs. Another factor that contributed to the poor quality of the directorates’ MPCs was the fact that the CORs developing them faced minimal quality checks. They worked for and reported to either the commanding general, the chief of staff or the garrison commander, not the contracting officer.

Of particular note, the chief of staff was responsible for acquisitions and funding for the NTC and Fort Irwin. This served as a platform by which Acquisition Command leadership could partner with the chief of staff to achieve a desired end state that motivated all parties involved. This teaming resulted in a recommendation for a revised version of the MPC process, which included quarterly reviews with all key stakeholders (chief of staff, garrison commander, directors, CORs, Acquisition Command personnel and contracting officer). Now, instead of the CORs explaining cost overruns to the contracting officer at the Acquisition Command organization, they and their directors would have to explain them to the chief of staff (who in many cases was the directors’ senior rater), in the presence of the garrison commander (who in many cases was the directors’ rater), in a headquarters conference room. We determined that if we could minimize mission creep and implement this revised MPC process, the quality of our MPC would improve.

Once we put the plan into action, this transformation yielded significant benefits. The chief of staff, the Acquisition Command, the director of resource management and the contracting officer compared the original directorates’ MPCs with current actual costs, and the directors were asked to explain any overruns in detail. We discovered that in some cases, the directorates were asking the contractor to exceed the scope of the contract, resulting in changes, mission creep and overruns.

After the first session, some one-time adjustments to contract funding were made, and the chief of staff and the garrison commander told the directors that they would be responsible for any future cost overruns for their respective organizations. The end result was a tighter MPC process, a higher-quality MPC and significantly fewer cost overruns.

CONCLUSION

The experience at NTC Acquisition Command yielded a number of valuable lessons in how to apply the MPC for maximum benefit:

• When using the MPC as a post-award tool and funding baseline, ensure that your MPC process is robust and flexible enough to incorporate changes that impact contract costs.
• Contractors must notify the contracting officer in a timely manner when they anticipate overrunning their cost on a cost-reimbursement contract.
• Leadership at all levels, not just in the Acquisition Command, needs to be involved in the MPC process. Everyone who contributes to the MPC and its process is a stakeholder.
• Government leaders and the contractor need to be held accountable for controlling their organizations’ respective costs.
• Keep lines of communication open within the government and between the government and the contractor.
• Ensure that MPC quarterly reviews are rigorous, fair and transparent.
• Finally, continually educate acquisition team members on the MPC and its process.

Taken together, these principles can determine whether and how the MPC can help an organization get a grip on its contract costs.

For more information, contact the author at anthony.j.nicolella.civ@mail.mil.

ANTHONY J. NICOLELLA, a retired U.S. Army officer who held numerous pre- and post-award contracting positions, is a professor of contract management at Defense Acquisition University (DAU) – South in Huntsville, Alabama. He holds an M.S.A. in general administration from Central Michigan University and a B.S. in logistics management from Penn State. Nicolella is Level III certified in contracting and is a member of the Army Acquisition Corps. Before joining DAU, he was a senior buyer and planner for NV Energy Inc. and a supervisory contract administrator for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

This article is published in the April – June 2018 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

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by Abel Trevino 

Defense Acquisition University (DAU) regularly develops case studies for educational purposes to emphasize acquisition in action. In DAU’s case-study-based curriculum, students spend weeks reviewing case studies that include the Army combat glove, the Navy’s advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, the Air Force F-18 software acquisition and dozens of others. While it often takes months to research and develop these case studies, DAU is also looking at ways to make the process go faster. With support from Ellen M. Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, DAU personnel are speeding up the release cycle by collecting acquisition stories and developing micro-case studies in defense innovation as videos and podcasts for immediate use. Turning around the media in a matter of days instead of weeks means members of the defense acquisition workforce can learn what is being used in the field right now instead of last year.

With that in mind, it is fitting that the first of these innovation stories was about Defense Innovation Unit Experimental. Then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter stood up the unit, commonly referred to as DIUX, in 2015 to quickly provide funding for innovative private-sector technology and get it into the hands of Soldiers in days instead of months and years. One of their recent successes was with the Shield AI mapping drone, a handheld quadcopter that will give troops eyes inside buildings before they rush in.

DIUX Leads the Way with Other Transaction Authority

Lauren Schmidt, pathways director for the program, explained that when contracting this quadcopter with Shield AI, DIUX chose other transaction (OT) authority over a traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) route not to circumvent any regulations, but instead to better tailor—and therefore speed up—development of the drone.

“DIUX chose to use OTs because it allows us to work with and reach out to a nontraditional [government contractor] on a fast, flexible and collaborative basis … we can solicit for, negotiate and award these OTs in a very short period of time, often as quickly as 60 to 75 days,” Schmidt said.

OTs are used to support research and development for prototype acquisition from companies that do not usually do business with DOD. Because much of this includes proprietary, cutting-edge technology, other transaction authority prototypes are not awarded through standard contracts and agreements. This provides a legal framework outside FAR with more flexibility to speed up the procurement timeline, particularly when making immediate adjustments to a prototype.

“Because all of the terms and conditions of the OT are negotiable, we can negotiate directly with those companies and design an OT that works best for both parties,” she said. “We can actually sit across from the company and design projects collaboratively together in a much more agile fashion than you can do under a FAR-based contract.”

Other transaction authority may have been the contracting vehicle for the Shield AI quadcopter prototype, but DIUX also reframed the contract to focus on solving the problem instead of generating a list of requirements that would have to be fulfilled.

“The acquisition process is complex,” Schmidt said. “It’s not just contracting, but it’s your overall acquisition model and your requirements. We try and focus not just on better speed to market and better outcomes from contracting through OTs, but also on the requirement side by focusing on problems rather than prescriptive requirements.”

This approach to problem-solving sped up development time by creating a flexible contracting environment that enabled the government to sit down with the developer and make adjustments to prototypes based on warfighter feedback.

“… Because of the flexibilities that OTs and their competitive process provide, we were able to modify the OT quickly in response to that direct warfighter feedback,” Schmidt said. “That gave us a much faster iterative loop of design and allowed us to get a better product that better met the needs of our warfighters on the ground.”

OTs provide a lot of flexibility to tailor contracts outside of traditional FAR regulations, which can make some people hesitant to employ them. However, Schmidt said that this flexibility is more a feature than a risk.

“There’s very little regulation or guidance on how you have to use them, and sometimes that can scare people off,” she said. “You can use the OT statute to design a process that works best for your team, for your mission, for your customers, so use this flexibility to the maximum extent practical. … OTs allow for a lot more flexibility throughout the life of the performance of the OT, not just in the solicitation or award for it. So it allows you to really respond to the needs of the project on the ground and respond to that engineering.”

The full interview with Lauren Schmidt can be found on DAU’s website. Do you have a success story to share? For more information, contact DAU Public Affairs at communications@dau.mil.

This article will be published in the July – September 2018 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

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Delivering now

PEO IEW&S contract planning tool literally shows the way to successful execution of myriad actions at once.

by Mr. John Higgins

“Deliver now” has become an unofficial motto of the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S). So what does that mean?

If you’ve heard the phrase “live in the now,” you have an idea. But PEO IEW&S deals with a very specific part of “now”—the now where our warfighters are at risk. In order to keep pace with threats from the intensely detail-oriented vantage point of contracting, the PEO headquarters’ Contract Planning Division has implemented several tools to help program managers (PMs) understand and plan for their current and future contract needs. The most far-reaching of these tools—one that informs all the others—is the Contract Management Review Board, which brings a more proactive focus on procurement action lead time and allows for timely contract awards to prevent gaps in delivering essential requirements to the warfighter.

To a great extent, this approach bears the influence of Maj. Gen. Kirk F. Vollmecke, program executive officer since April 2016, who has held a variety of leadership positions in theater and stateside in which he was responsible for ensuring that contracts delivered as promised. Before coming to PEO IEW&S, Vollmecke was deputy commanding general for the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan, overseeing the security assistance program for the Afghan National Security Forces . He has also served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command and deputy to the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement, so he appreciates timely and accurate contracting.

“Vollmecke knows it is important, as he has seen death in wartime efforts because PWSs [performance work statements] weren’t written correctly,” said Mardel Wojciechowski, chief of the Contract Planning Division. “He takes that to heart. He lived it. That is why we take the time to technically write our PWSs to be cogent and succinct and hold the contractors accountable.”

MAPPING THE PATH

To that end, under Vollmecke’s guidance, the team created the Contract Management Review Board. It’s a kind of virtual whiteboard, where all the stakeholders have access to a living document on a network. “It’s very visual, so even if someone doesn’t know contracting, they can look at that flowchart and understand where the PM is with that program and that contract action,” said Wojciechowski. “Users can see when it’s due to award, when the follow-on is due, if there’s an option to be exercised, and determine if they’re going to need any type of extension.”

The board facilitates interaction among the various offices involved in a contract. It allows the requiring activity, such as a PM, a PEO or the U.S. Army Contracting Command, along with legal staff and the competition advocate, to get involved early and buy in to a timeline, said Kim Nugent, an acquisition management specialist on the contract planning team. “Bad news does not get better with time,” Nugent noted. That oft-heard saying is one reason the board exists; it brings any issues to the surface so that all parties can facilitate a solution, she said.

The Contract Management Review Board is updated quarterly. The charts are prepared by the PMs and presented in person to the deputy PEO at least twice a year, sometimes more. Who puts the board together is handled on a case-by-case basis at each PM. Typically the O-5 staff will complete the charts for their products, and the O-6 staff will consolidate them into one submission for each PM.

The board “also shows the progress of the documents that comprise an [acquisition requirements package] and can be the first indicator that a contract award will slip if not prepared in a timely manner,” said Nugent.

This screenshot from the Contract Management Review Board, with contract specifics removed, represents a product or project manager’s current and projected contracts for a five-year period. The five-year period was chosen to allow users to ensure proper transitions between periods of performance by tracking when contracts are due to expire and planning for follow-on acquisition requirement packages. The system is updated in real time so that users track the most accurate information. The dotted red line on the left marks the current date, and the key in the bottom left corner identifies which contracts have been awarded and which are in the planning stages. The down arrow at the beginning of FY19 indicates the date that the first effort is scheduled to transition to the next project award below. (Image by Justin Rakowski, PEO IEW&S)

TRIMMING THE FAT

The success of this new tool is clearly measurable. “One thing that we’ve noticed is a reduction in bridge contracts,” that is, contracts that extend lead or funding time for a certain product’s development, said Jesse LeFever, a procurement coordinator on Wojciechowski’s team. “That’s helpful not only to us but also to the PMs, because we’re all doing less duplication of work.” The number of bridge contracts decreased from 37 in FY15 to only four in FY18. Additionally, reducing time spent on the bridge actions gives PMs more time to focus on high-quality follow-on acquisition requirements packages.

In preparing charts for the board, the PM must pay special attention to procurement action lead time, which is a general outline of the required time to award a contract from start to finish, including three major milestones along the way. Phase I is the period between establishment of contract by the integrated product team and draft acquisition requirements package approval. Phase II is the period between draft acquisition requirements package approval and request for proposal (RFP) release; Phase III is the number of days from RFP release to contract award.

Further, the team has seen value in making five-year contracts the standard as much as possible.

“It’s very important because the [procurement action lead time] to put a new contract package together is a two-year period,” said LeFever. “So if the PM awards a three-year contract, there is only a one-year gap before you are starting over. By doing five- to 10-year contracts, you’re not just doing the churn constantly.

“Before, if you had a current contract that’s going to end in, let’s say, March, and your new contract isn’t going to be awarded in time, not only are you creating all the documentation for the new contract, you would also have to create additional, separate documentation to extend the current efforts in order to be able to meet your requirements,” LeFever said.

Dr. Bruce D. Jette, right, was confirmed by the United States Senate as the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)) on December 20, 2017, and sworn into office on January 2, 2018. In this position, he serves as the Army Acquisition Executive, the Senior Procurement Executive, the Science Advisor to the Secretary of the Army, and the Army’s Senior Research and Development official. He also has principal responsibility for all Department of the Army matters related to logistics. On Jan. 31, 2018, Jette took a quick tour of Program Executive office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare & Sensors, giving personnel his concepts of what Acquisition does well, what it can do better and what it might need to do in the future. He gave a coin to Kim Nugent, left, an Acquisition Management specialist for Program Manager Terrestrial Sensors, for her achievements in contracting and streamlining processes. Mardel Wojciechowski, center, the Contract Planning Division Chief, saw to it that Kim was given a coin by the ASA ALT. (U.S. Army Photo/John Higgins)

CONCLUSION

The board “allows the PM to see a pictorial view of contract coverage over a five-year period.” said Nugent. “In addition, it shows major inch-stones, which act as leading indicators to timely contract award.” Those inch-stones—so named because they are necessary steps between milestones—bring clarity to a highly complex process, allowing even nonexperts to see the bigger picture. Everyone’s “piece” of a contract process is more clearly laid out before them, making it easy to see where they fit in the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is how a PEO must plan.

“The PEO has tried to instill and empower the PMs to think long-term, plan far ahead,” said Wojciechowski. “He said, ‘I know that you don’t think you should plan today because you don’t have the money. That’s not the concept. The concept is to plan before you have the money, so that you’re prepared and postured to execute those dollars on a contract vehicle to support that mission when it’s time and keep pace with the threat.’ ”

This means focusing contract planning not only on current needs but also future needs and requirements, so that they deliver “now” even when the “now” changes.

For more information, go to the PEO IEW&S website.

JOHN HIGGINS is a public affairs writer for PEO IEW&S. He is an Iraq War veteran and former public affairs Soldier. He holds a B.A. in film production from Towson University.

This article will be published in the July – September 2018 issue of Army AL&T magazine.

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