Most products and services the government purchases are purchased through “acquisition vehicles” – a contract that allows a specific vendor or set of vendors to sell products or services to a specific agency. Such vehicles were created to make acquisitions more “fair and open” as well as faster, but they have the opposite effect. Due to the huge overhead and bureaucracy of a government acquisition these vehicles become huge and long-standing private clubs – and are very hard to change or get rid of. Instead of making acquisition fair and open they create a closed system where only a few companies can provide a product or service. Look on the web page of government contractors – these vehicles are ASSETS of the company because they LOCK OUT competition. Some of these vehicles are HUGE – billions of dollars and hundreds of companies. Types of multi-award vehicles are: GWAC, IDIQ & BPA.
Acquisitions should be fair and open and the government should be able to have long-standing relationships with quality providers and use their products and services with minimum hassle. However, when a new product or service becomes available the government should have access to them immediately – and not have to wait years for one of these vehicles to be “re-competed”. The fair and open nature of acquisitions will be served by openness – making any favoritism very visible.
This idea, which will not be popular with many government contractors, is to eliminate these long multi-award vehicles. Allow any agency to be able to use any supplier or contractor without requiring a vehicle. All that should be required is that the vendor be validated using a simplified “GSA Schedule” process where the vendors declares their capabilities and prices (so that all vendors offerings can be compared and then purchased – just like you do on the internet).
The only time the government need enter into a long-term contract to acquire something is when it get some advantage for that long term – a set price, result or guaranteed availability. The government should not have to create a vehicle just to avoid the overhead of the acquisition process – that provides no value.
As a companion to eliminating dysfunctional acquisition vehicles the acquisition process must be made more agile, more visible and simpler. For example, the very time consuming and expensive “bid” process should not always be required when the government already has the information it needs to acquire what it wants. Bids, like vehicles, were created with the best of intentions for a fair and open process – but frequently have the opposite effect and also make agile processes impossible. Vendors should be able to work collaboratively with the government to achieve the best result; the bid system sometimes prevents such collaboration. Of course there are other cases where bids are the right approach.
Full disclosure: I am a government contractor and have both benefitted and suffered from these vehicles – they are great to have. But, I don’t think they are in the best interest of the government or citizens
Comments (4)
Yeah OK, but why have the government buying anything from a company that has share holders and CEOs and CFOs and Chairmen of the boards that all want a percentage of every contract to line THEIR pockets. How is THAT in the interests of the taxpayer?
War is a game to profit.
I don't agree with eliminating all multiple award vehicles (e.g. MAS, GWAC, MAC, etc.) but I do think that they have been overused and misused. Ensuring that procurement transactions are visible to public scrutiny may have a better result in the long run than elimination. The situation is further complicated by the dramtic increase in spend coupled with a flat staffing model for the acquisition workforce.
Peter, I completely agree. As an acquisition professional I can say that MACs when properly utilized provide a great benefit. Unfortunately they are open to misuse and abuse and fair opportunity is not always given.