Browse Ideas with tag 'procurement':

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  Overhaul the mililtary procurement process

  I've been in the Navy for over eight years now, and much of how the military purchases equipment doesn't make sense in the real world. For example, there are many instances where Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) products are used, and this is fine for most products. However, when it comes to computers & high tech devices, quality goes up and price goes down rapidly. I've seen instances where a multi-year computer contract ...more »

  I've been in the Navy for over eight years now, and much of how the military purchases equipment doesn't make sense in the real world. For example, there are many instances where Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) products are used, and this is fine for most products.

  However, when it comes to computers & high tech devices, quality goes up and price goes down rapidly. I've seen instances where a multi-year computer contract is signed that pays for high end systems, and locks that initial price in for additional and replacement units. The problem is that the price of a specific computer model will drop to about half in a single year and be worthless in three, while the Navy will continue paying the original purchase cost for now obsolete replacements five years later.

  Also, there are specialized equipment systems where the final purchase authority doesn't have more than a conceptual idea of the system, i.e. s/he knows what the system does, but doesn't know the details of the individual pieces of gear within the system and how they interact with the whole. This leads to contract padding, where a system is made unnecessarily complex in order to increase the contract cost. If enlisted maintenance technicians & installers were more involved with the final purchase it could result in a better and less costly product.

  More examples can be given, but this post is long enough as it is.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Contractor Overhead Rates

  Over the years I have seen contractor overhead rates range from 8% to over 200%. In that respect, a couple of years ago, DoD came out with an initiative that capped Academic Grants Overhead rates at 40%. With that in mind, I do not understand why this standard cannot be placed across all of the government contracts. This would force government contractors to be more leaner and lower the overall cost to the government. ...more »

  Over the years I have seen contractor overhead rates range from 8% to over 200%. In that respect, a couple of years ago, DoD came out with an initiative that capped Academic Grants Overhead rates at 40%. With that in mind, I do not understand why this standard cannot be placed across all of the government contracts. This would force government contractors to be more leaner and lower the overall cost to the government. Also, this would ease the down time that is created when awaiting a Defense Contracting Audit Agency (DCAA) overhead rate audit at the beginning or end of a contract. This would speed up award times and closeout times. By speeding up closeout times, the government would spend less time tracking outstanding unexpended funds and in some case allow them to reallocate those funds to another project. By freeing up DCAA, they would be able to spend more time analyzing labor rates and perform other auditing functions to ensure no fraud, waste or abuse was happening.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Research & Development Collaborative effort

  My idea is to create a panel to review new research and development projects to see how they could be combined with other agencies to get a bigger bang for the buck. In the past 5 years, I've seen each agency put small amounts of money into a fad, but get very little from it. Supposedly, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) were created to ...more »

  My idea is to create a panel to review new research and development projects to see how they could be combined with other agencies to get a bigger bang for the buck. In the past 5 years, I've seen each agency put small amounts of money into a fad, but get very little from it. Supposedly, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) were created to do this. However, that is not the case because they have their own budgets and initiativies. My proposal would require research projects being run through a panel like the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program or the IC's In-Q-Tel Program. In the SBIR program a panel of experts reveiw the research proposals for duplicative efforts and when one is found, they refer the submitter to the other agency to work on a collaborative approach which would result in a better research initiative. In the In-Q-Tel Program, the IC members review the venture capitalist proposals and collaboratively invest funds into a projec to get a bigger bang for the dollar. While this suggested panel may add additional oversight, in the end I feel that it would provide a better universal product and ultimately save money in the procurement area as well because instead of 10 contracts, there now might be two.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  eliminate the stigma of stopping ineffective programs

  In many partrs of the government, leading a "successful" program is a path to career success, which sometimes creates an incentive for a program manager to defend their program to the bitter end, even if they know the program to be flawed, ineffective, or wasteful. By creating a culture where saying "This isn't working" is just as valued as being "successful", we can potentially save money. This should be tied to effort ...more »

  In many partrs of the government, leading a "successful" program is a path to career success, which sometimes creates an incentive for a program manager to defend their program to the bitter end, even if they know the program to be flawed, ineffective, or wasteful. By creating a culture where saying "This isn't working" is just as valued as being "successful", we can potentially save money.

  This should be tied to effort to make it both easier to start and fund efforts, and to shut them down. In the current procurement process, it's so hard to start and fund anything that once a program is up and running, it becomes at least partially focused on self-preservation, not on optimal performance, because the cost of "starting over" is so high in both time and schedule delay.

  Killing ineffective programs should not also kill one's career.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Consolidate Shared Info Simplify Structure/Delivery

  One source, easy retrieval and usage. Information shared agency-wide or even inter-agency can be shared and delivered to end users or applications in a standard structure agreed upon by a consortium. Instances of information can be stored or cached at multiple nodes and refreshed regularly. An example: NASA can host science publications and author information as searchable XML in a structure web developers agency-wide ...more »

  One source, easy retrieval and usage.

  Information shared agency-wide or even inter-agency can be shared and delivered to end users or applications in a standard structure agreed upon by a consortium. Instances of information can be stored or cached at multiple nodes and refreshed regularly.

  An example: NASA can host science publications and author information as searchable XML in a structure web developers agency-wide agree upon. This information can be displayed by any website or application with access to the XML feed.

  Currently, this kind of information is entered by any number of authors to any number of websites or applications. The result of this is a vast, disjointed collection and likely inconsistent information that takes much effort to normalize, alter or ingest into other systems.

  Centralizing and standardizing by consortium would allow the development community to spend more time on development, maintain control over delivery vehicle, and have easy to use consistent data at their disposal. Developers can focus on new personal innovations instead.

  Successful example of consortium-derived standards: RSS Feeds, HTML, CSS, Wordpress, et. al.

  Possible areas that could be improved: medical records, personnel listing / records, publications, research highlights, training materials, education / outreach resources, inventory, procurement, logistics, intelligence, etc.

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  Design-Build contracting arrangements

  We at the Dept. of Energy's EERE and the Golden Field Office successfully used a design-build contracting arrangement to construct an ultra energy efficient building (the Research Support Facility uses 50 % less energy than a comparable building) at the US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. The $80 million project was delivered in 16 months, within budget and on scheduled. The design-build ...more »

  We at the Dept. of Energy's EERE and the Golden Field Office successfully used a design-build contracting arrangement to construct an ultra energy efficient building (the Research Support Facility uses 50 % less energy than a comparable building) at the US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. The $80 million project was delivered in 16 months, within budget and on scheduled. The design-build strategy streamlines procurement, allows the government to take advantage of the creativity and expertise of architectural/construction firms, forces agencies to clearly define project requirements, and provides a platform for a true partnering arrangement that fosters collaborative problem solving. The Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) offers training, assistance, and more. Did I mention that there were no contract disputes to resolve?

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  Adopt the S1000D standard

  Adopting the S1000D international standard for technical publications would allow the entire government to be able to share information more easily. The information, once put into a common source database, would be able to be used by whomever needed it. And once it is placed there, the need for reentering the data is not needed, threrby decreasing the costs of rewriting and reediting the work. Most major companies ...more »

  Adopting the S1000D international standard for technical publications would allow the entire government to be able to share information more easily. The information, once put into a common source database, would be able to be used by whomever needed it. And once it is placed there, the need for reentering the data is not needed, threrby decreasing the costs of rewriting and reediting the work. Most major companies have begun to adopt the standard.

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  Bring contracting into the electronic age

  Web technology makes it possible for an award to be managed over its entire lifecycle from proposal to closeout in a single electronic place in cyberspace that all the hundreds of people who touch an award can access. However, contracting organizations are stuck in paper records and at most have email and attachments to work with. This results in everyone in the chain having to set up their own filing system on their ...more »

  Web technology makes it possible for an award to be managed over its entire lifecycle from proposal to closeout in a single electronic place in cyberspace that all the hundreds of people who touch an award can access. However, contracting organizations are stuck in paper records and at most have email and attachments to work with. This results in everyone in the chain having to set up their own filing system on their personal computer and no where is there a complete electronic file. The official file remains hardcopy that only the contracting officer has and all the other people who need to see the file can't. Everyone is working to the Federal Acquisition Regulations which are available on the web, but there is not a robust contracting management tool with open access to the hundreds of people involved including the awardee to support getting the job done. The result is massive delays and lost competiveness. We could save BILLIONS if we would empower the contracting people with appropriate web technology tools.

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  A Trillion Dollar waste - WELFARE,section8 ,low income housing

  http://www.hud.gov/complaints/fraud_waste.cfm -section 8 and low income housing encourages dependency and complacent behavior. Why work when you can get a house for practically free and keep collecting entitlements. ILLLEGAL squatting and unauthrized people live with a legal tenet often and this is a criminal offense since changes in family size and income are required to be reported. the section 8 system and low income ...more »

  http://www.hud.gov/complaints/fraud_waste.cfm -section 8 and low income housing encourages dependency and complacent behavior. Why work when you can get a house for practically free and keep collecting entitlements. ILLLEGAL squatting and unauthrized people live with a legal tenet often and this is a criminal offense since changes in family size and income are required to be reported. the section 8 system and low income housing system is a complete failure which has drained the US economy of trillions of dollars and maintained tenets in social and financial bondage. there is no incentive to leave section 8 or low income housing. why work or attend college when you can get housing for free or low cost. This encouranges drug abuse and out of wedlock births and tenet abuse by housing squatters and unauthorized people living in the units. section 8 and low income housing also reduce local taxpayers home values and create blighted neighborhoods with loud music and cars with dark windows and dirty messy yards often with dirt as a yard.. SECTION 8 and LOW INCOME HOUSING TENETS NEED TIME LIMITS of 1 to 3 years then they must be evicted from the units since they are living on free enititlements and have no incentive to Raise themselves out of the free benefits. WAKE UP AMERICA! WE ARE TRILLIONS IN DEBT and giving away FREE BENEFITS . remember that all secion 8 and low income housing authoritys are TAX FREE and you pay the costs of educating the people and their rents are susidized and food and insurance are subsidized and paid for. its like the midlle and upper class is paying triple to live, we all have to pay for everyone else.. its not fair..http://www.hud.gov/complaints/fraud_waste.cfm

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  Prohibit congress from interfering in acquisitions programs

  Too often the congress, in an effort to bring money to their constituents, feels it has the right to interfere in acquisitions programs run by the executive branch. This is harmful to the integrity of the acquisitions process because an individual who has not been given a contracting officer's warrant, has not been through any amount of training regarding the acquisition process, has no knowledge of the program (other ...more »

  Too often the congress, in an effort to bring money to their constituents, feels it has the right to interfere in acquisitions programs run by the executive branch. This is harmful to the integrity of the acquisitions process because an individual who has not been given a contracting officer's warrant, has not been through any amount of training regarding the acquisition process, has no knowledge of the program (other than how it might affect their re-election efforts), and seems to care little for the total cost of the program feels the need to boost their own ego. Often times the congress demands, directly through law or indirectly by threat, that executive branch acquisitions officials make awards - in flagrant violation of the acquisitions law they themselves approved!

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  Prohibit political appointees from micromanaging acquisitions

  There are too many political appointees, especially in the DOD, that attempt to micromanage various acquisitions programs. This is especially harmful to the acquisitions process for two key reasons: it subverts the authority of the warranted contracting official and harms the program integrity by allowing an official with little to no direct knowledge of the program (or acquisitions, negotiations, etc...) to make direct ...more »

  There are too many political appointees, especially in the DOD, that attempt to micromanage various acquisitions programs. This is especially harmful to the acquisitions process for two key reasons: it subverts the authority of the warranted contracting official and harms the program integrity by allowing an official with little to no direct knowledge of the program (or acquisitions, negotiations, etc...) to make direct decisions regarding the acquisitions strategy.

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  Take top 25 submissions and top 25 contributors for discussion

  I like most ideas on this website. I think that most ideas have come from somebody who is trying to do a great job at what they do. It has become so difficult to navigate through that, I have decided to take 15 minutes out of my day to dedicate to this at home on my own time. I believe that the top 25 contributors and top 25 idea submitters should be invited to bring their heads together and discuss what is really ...more »

  I like most ideas on this website. I think that most ideas have come from somebody who is trying to do a great job at what they do.

  It has become so difficult to navigate through that, I have decided to take 15 minutes out of my day to dedicate to this at home on my own time.

  I believe that the top 25 contributors and top 25 idea submitters should be invited to bring their heads together and discuss what is really important to their agency and to the federal government as a whole.

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  Improve Inputs to Procurement Process

  Contracting Officers execute awards, but it's others in the Department that drive the process along the way. I know that there have been efforts to expand who is considered a part of the "acquisition community," but we need to keep improving. For example, the requiring office is in the best position to know what they need. When they submit an intentionally vague statement of work, it will take a lot of rework to make ...more »

  Contracting Officers execute awards, but it's others in the Department that drive the process along the way. I know that there have been efforts to expand who is considered a part of the "acquisition community," but we need to keep improving.

  For example, the requiring office is in the best position to know what they need. When they submit an intentionally vague statement of work, it will take a lot of rework to make it contract-able, and it still won't yield as good a result as a well-defined requirement.

  If the technical experts aren't diligent with market research, how can we expand our contractor base beyond the same old Beltway insiders?

  If we don't have solid Independent Government Estimates, we start out a step behind with our negotiations. (At some Agencies, they're consistently high, at others, always low.) And if an IGE originated with a vendor, it's hardly independent, isn't it?

  The government needs for federal employees involved in procurement (and even if you're not a CO or COTR, you probably help to identify or use the stuff being purchased) to help with the push to make the government more efficient.

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  Push (REEL) Mowers for Inmates

  A solution to save on fuel costs would be for Institutions to use push mowers instead of gasoline operated mowers. Not only does the government save money for fuel and maintenancer, but inmates are afforded health benefits by pushing the mowers, maintaining their physical fitness. Additionally, the environmental impact is aided in less carbon emisions. The cost of a gas powered mower is around 3 to 4 times what a manual ...more »

  A solution to save on fuel costs would be for Institutions to use push mowers instead of gasoline operated mowers. Not only does the government save money for fuel and maintenancer, but inmates are afforded health benefits by pushing the mowers, maintaining their physical fitness. Additionally, the environmental impact is aided in less carbon emisions. The cost of a gas powered mower is around 3 to 4 times what a manual push mower would cost. Also, the maintenance for a manual push mower is 10% of maintaining a gas powered mower.

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  Equipment CONSOLIDATION and ReUTILIZATION

  Equipment CONSOLIDATION and Re-UTILIZATION First come first served. Someone’s trash or excess is someone’s treasure (items needed for another office / or site.) We need to start sharing our knowledge of what we have in excess and what we can donate, exchange, or give away; this could be done within the organization we all resides / or working with…. 1- Each department can provide an equipment list of excess, unused ...more »

  Equipment CONSOLIDATION and Re-UTILIZATION First come first served.

  Someone’s trash or excess is someone’s treasure (items needed for another office / or site.)

  We need to start sharing our knowledge of what we have in excess and what we can donate, exchange, or give away; this could be done within the organization we all resides / or working with….

  1- Each department can provide an equipment list of excess, unused or not desire equipment.

  2- This list can be consolidated as a good faith estimate for property disposal - but not to be disposed of as scrap or as unserviceable items to your local supply or DRMO (Demilitarized Reutilization Marketing Office) or via disposition under form SF120, or disposal of to “Area 51.”

  3- Have 2 Goods-Assets Offices (a logistics office or a Central point of distribution):

  a- a Non-Information Technology (IT) or Office Furniture -- Have an office to store or coordinate the excess of furniture equipment - for utilization whiting the Agency; and after 6 or 12 moths the equipment can go on a SF120 for other agencies to take advantage.

  b- An Information Technology Equipment -- Have an Office in charge of reporting all of the excess Information Technology Equipment. There is so many unopened or boxed up electronic equipment, cables, parts, magnetic media, ect out there that it can be realigned.

  Example 1 --- Maybe someone has a piece of switch / router equipment, or let said a Printer or keyboard, for example it could be transferred to someone in needs of printers or networking communication equipment. And this could start within the office Organization. The cost related to this scenario; as stated before someone needs a $25,000 or $65,000 Cisco 4600 Switch with 192 Giga-Ethernet ports and fiber ports. The equipment could be transferred to the office needing the upgrade without the need of spending almost $80,000 on Switches and this kind of sort of equipment.

  Example 2 --- Someone is conducting a program and there is a project of changing cables on the switches and converting this old Cat5 to Cat6 cabling, because the new technology is booming and the office is going to have Voice-over-IP technology. There was an office down the street that has excess of Cat6 cables and connectors sitting in a corner for the last 2 years. The IT Office Reutilization tapped and has the knowledge of this equipment, and then the Cable could be transferred to the NEW Project office for optimizing the network with Voice-over-IP system. The cost scenario here, someone needs 300 patch cables at approximately $15.00 a piece. The total here is $4,500 in just cables (upgrading the infrastructure to CAT6 only.)

  Remember some of this part can last a long time; cables, parts, magnetic media (usually this magnetic storage media is good for 30 or 40 years.)

  The question is: How many of you have some of them, knowingly that someone could benefit from it.

  see other ideas here:

  http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Control-AC---Heating-and-1-hour-turn-off-for-SAVING-ENERGY-/123166-13060

  http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Eliminate-Government-Vehicle-for-permanent-Domicile-to-Duty/122824-13060

  http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Wind-turbine-and-Solar-Panels/122931-13060

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  consolidation of governmental automated systems

  Federal agencies should be utilizing the same automated systems for certain administrative processes. For example, personnel actions. There are several different systems used throughout the government for HR related matters. The IRS uses HRConnect, USDA uses EmpowerHR, etc. It would be more cost effective to have all agencies utilize one system for position management, and personnel and payroll actions. Other systems ...more »

  Federal agencies should be utilizing the same automated systems for certain administrative processes. For example, personnel actions. There are several different systems used throughout the government for HR related matters. The IRS uses HRConnect, USDA uses EmpowerHR, etc. It would be more cost effective to have all agencies utilize one system for position management, and personnel and payroll actions. Other systems that should be standardized accross agencies are travel reimbursement systems, procurement systems and time and attendance systems. Instead of having several different contractors developing and maintaining these functions in different agencies we would have one, the savings would be enormous

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  Hire Procurement team with financial or accounting experience

  Contract Specialist, Contracing Officers and Contracting Officer Representatives should have a financial or accounting background to scrutnize proposals more effectively and filter out over spending from vendors!!

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  Hire contract specialists with financial or accounting backgroun

  I get tired of catching so many financial mistakes in contracting. If contrract specialists and the procurement workforce were trained in financial management, over spending by vendors would be caught sooner! It is important that contract specialist know how to use excel and formulas when evaluating proposals from vendors!

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  Incorporating risk analysis in federal procurement

  Each program office in government agencies should have a risk manager that A) Provides risk analysis before a contact is awarded B) Compiles progress reports throughout the life of the contract C) Completes a detailed past performance evaluation after the completion of the contract explaining if the vendor met deadlines ontime. D) Provides a contract closeout report on acquisitions over $5 million - this report would ...more »

  Each program office in government agencies should have a risk manager that

  A) Provides risk analysis before a contact is awarded

  B) Compiles progress reports throughout the life of the contract

  C) Completes a detailed past performance evaluation after the completion of the contract explaining if the vendor met deadlines ontime.

  D) Provides a contract closeout report on acquisitions over $5 million - this report would be a financial analysis on how the vendor spent the money awarded and whether the vendor delivered the product or service

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  Creating competition for sole source contracts over $5million

  By creating competition, the federal goverment eliminates overspending from sole source vendors. Procurement is understaffed in most gov't agencies and contracts are not scrutinized thoroughly. Contracting Specialists and Contracting Officer Representatives do not supervise contracts efficiently and vendors overbill the gov't constantly because of their lack of accounting and financial experience. Sole source vendors ...more »

  By creating competition, the federal goverment eliminates overspending from sole source vendors. Procurement is understaffed in most gov't agencies and contracts are not scrutinized thoroughly. Contracting Specialists and Contracting Officer Representatives do not supervise contracts efficiently and vendors overbill the gov't constantly because of their lack of accounting and financial experience. Sole source vendors take advantage of government agencies that do not have a well trained technical and financial staff.

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  5-Year Budget Cycle

  Place all USG agencies on a five-year budgeting cycle similar to DOD. Strategic vision would be the new mantra across the USG.

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  Non-Year Appropriations

  Make all FY appropriations (O&M) non-year with same rules as for R&D/RDT&E, and Procurement in that residual funds may only be used for prior year starts/activities/over-runs, etc., unless exchanged on a dollar-for-dollar basis for new, current year appropriations of similar type. No different than re-coloring appropriations in bundles that goes on today.

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  Eliminate FAR Clause 52.222-42, Statement of Equivalent Federal

  FAR Clause 52.222-42, Statement of Equivalent Federal Hires, goes into every solicitation & contract subject to the Service Contract Act. However, the clause serves no useful purpose, since any competent contractor wouldn't rely on this to guage what to pay their employees. The clause has outlived its usefulness

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  FAR simplification

  Revise the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to simplify the government procurement process. A document that has over 1,500 pages does not promote timely execution of government contracts. Develop a web based system that suppliers can provide quotes to all areas of the government similar to USAjobs.

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  Competition Needed for Simplified Acquisitions

  The Department of Energy needs to do a better job of competing smaller dollar contracts/purchase orders. Most requests come to procurement with the vendor identified. By competiting contracts the government will save milllions of dollars

  Add your comment for Idea: Competition Needed for Simplified Acquisitions

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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