Open Dialogue on Improving How to Do Business with the Federal Government Ideas

Revise the process procedure review approval cycle. If a contractor has had a process ( welding, plating etc) procedure approved ,why does it have to be approved again? If the procedure has not changed and it falls into a set time frame ( i.e. 12 mths) , why resubmit. There should be a approval letter that the contractor can submit and the 30 or 45 or more days cycle can be reduced to 1 or 2 days.

Remove reverse auctions. They are a large waste of time and the process can not benefit the government and save any money.

The PQDR process needs to be revised. Why does a contractor have to take extraordinary steps for the Government to remove a PQDR from the system that the contractor has proven was incorrect and the products meet the contract and requirements. The PQDR system is reviewed when a contracting officers is considering and award. False reports can impact getting awards.

Requiring names of key personnel prior to solicitation is a barrier to entry for small businesses and favors incumbents. Small businesses don't have a cadre of key personnel that they can commit to contracts that are still in the solicitation phase. Incumbents can, because they can propose the same people that are working on the contract. Large businesses can also, because they're large. Acquisition teams should be ...more »

It seems that FAPIIS and CO’s do not look closely enough at a contractor’’ entire record, and that they look primarily at whether the company has been caught violating the law or cheating workers on federal contracts. This makes no sense. Contractors who cheat workers or who cut corners elsewhere are just as likely to do that on a federal job if it increases their bottom line, and they should not be rewarded with more ...more »

What about an organization that is dedicated to helping small companies navigate the contracting process? In our experience, once you have fought the battle to gain certification (FedRamp or ATO), there is a bigger and more expensive hurdle of getting on the GSA price list and/or finding an appropriate contracting vehicle. Most companies end up working with a contracting partner like Carasoft or mmix who take a big ...more »

Given the breadth of the complaints, perhaps it is time to create a new major panel similar to the Section 800 panel to address this issues in depth and systematically. Such a group could have the support of both the Congress and the Administration and the product of that group would be much more likely to obtain broad support, as FASA received overwhelming bi-partisan approval and resulted in significant change.

If you really want to increase small biz participation, increase the use of Section 845 Other Transactions Agreements. It's a great way to encourage non-traditional small biz participation, eliminate a lot of DCAA accounting issues, and keep innovation flowing. The ones my company has been involved in have been very successful. Also, expand the OTA to allow for manufacturing as well as prototyping. Moving away from ...more »

We have been registered on CCR and now Sam for several years. Part of the registration requires a listing of services/products offered. However we have NEVE$R been alerted of an rfp by a CO using this system to notify qualified suppliers.

The present system requires a marketing effort broader and more intensive than is required to sell to non governmental operations.

See attached document for details.

Currently there is a Commercial Items test programs that allows use of SAP up to $6.5M for commercial items, or NDIs that have been sold to State and Local Governments. Unfortunately some design activities are wary about providing commercial item determinations because they fear it could cause them to lose control of the item to another design activity or lose Quality Assurance capabilities. There is also a military ...more »

One of the reasons there is so much set-aside money left is because the government makes it impossible for the average small business to grow. They give up before they even try. We need x number of contracts before we even become eligible to compete. How about the government being that entity that provides the first numbers of contracts? If private companies can take the risk to give the small business their first contracts, ...more »