Bid protests are increasing, and the effectiveness for protestors is relatively high. Bid protests delay receipt of needed goods and services. They are costly to prevent and to adjudicate. The purpose of this research is to better understand why bid protests are lodged by interested parties. This research concentrates on meso-level factors controlled by the acquisition team that affect the receipt of a bid protest, namely, the characteristics of the procurement, acquisition strategy decisions, and human factors. Using an existing data set of 240 government source selections resulting from a survey of U.S. Navy contracting officials, 19 antecedent factors will be explored. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program
Bid protests are increasing, and the effectiveness for protestors is relatively high. Bid protests delay receipt of needed goods and services. They are costly to prevent and to adjudicate. The purpose of this research is to better understand why bid protests are lodged by interested parties. This research concentrates on meso-level factors controlled by the acquisition team that affect the receipt of a bid protest, namely, the characteristics of the procurement, acquisition strategy decisions, and human factors. Using an existing data set of 240 government source selections resulting from a survey of U.S. Navy contracting officials, 19 antecedent factors will be explored. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program
Government e-procurement initiatives have the potential to transform local institutions, but few studies have been published of strategies for implementing specific e-procurement tools, particularly involving procurement by a foreign government adapting to local culture in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA). This case describes procurement at a forward operating base (FOB) in Kuwait in support of operations in Iraq. The government procurers had to deal with a phenomenon unique to the MENA region: wasta. Wasta is a form of social capital that bestows power, influence, and connection to those who possess it, similar to guanxi in China. This study explores the value proposition and limitations of electronic reverse auctions (eRA) with the purpose of sharing best practices and lessons learned for government procurement in a MENA country. The public value framework provides valuable theoretical insights for the implementation of a new government e-procurement tool in a foreign country. In a culture dominated by wasta, the suppliers enjoyed the transparency and merit-based virtues of eRA's that transferred successfully into the new cultural milieu: potential to increase transparency, competition, efficiency, and taxpayer savings. The practices provided herein are designed specifically to help buyers overcome structural barriers including training, organizational inertia, and a lack of eRA policy and guidance while implementing a new e-procurement tool in a foreign country.
Acquisition reform initiatives fundamentally transformed the protocols and processes the U.S. federal government utilizes to procure billions of dollars worth of goods and services every year. Reforms provided under the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) and the Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA), along with ensuing regulatory provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), created more business-to-business–like contracting procedures. One such procedure is the FAR 13.5 "Test Program for Commercial Items." FAR 13.5 allows the utilization of simplified acquisition procedures for all commercialitem- designated goods and services up to and including $6.5 million.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to better understand the effectiveness of buyers' defensive measures to thwart bid protests in government procurements.
Design/methodology/approach A sample of 240 sourcing professionals concerning government source selections is used to analyze a logistic regression model exploring 6 antecedents of bid protests.
Findings This research implicates the importance of oral presentations of offers, the type of value procured (i.e. services), protest experience, the quantity of document revisions, transaction costs and cost reimbursement contracts in receiving a bid protest.
Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is the first to explore sourcing strategy decisions that can contribute to the receipt of a bid protest. It adds clarity to an understudied market of business – the public sector.
The U.S. government regularly participates as a buyer in industrial markets where products are customarily sold through indirect marketing and distribution chains, separating buyers from manufacturers. In many cases, these marketing, distribution, and store-front activities add significant value for buyers, such as through pre- and post-sale service and support, improvements to product availability, and reductions in per-unit pricing (e.g., via economies due to warehousing, transportation, and ordering processes). Accordingly, the government (U.S. Small Business Administration) has, in some instances, issued class waivers to the requirements of the "non-manufacturer rule" (15 U.S.C. § 657s) when no small business manufacturers exist for a product, such that contracts can be set aside for competition among small business non-manufacturers. This study models the effectiveness of class non-manufacturer rule waivers on the utilization of small business concerns. The purpose of the research is to obtain a better understanding of market and industry conditions in which these waivers are successful at driving small business utilization, as well as conditions where class waivers, once issued, tend to be poorly utilized. A time series panel of data derived from several archival sources was used to estimate a fractional response model with a Bernoulli quasi-maximum likelihood estimation methodology. Findings indicate that NMR waivers work best to increase small business utilization in industries characterized by low concentration and low levels of price inflation. Understanding these factors will inform policy and regulation. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program
PurposeThe purpose of this research is to explore the effects of supplier selection method on key procurement outcomes such as procurement lead time (PLT), supplier performance and buyer team size.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a sample of 124 archival contract records from the US Department of Defense. A multiple regression model and multivariate analysis of covariance/analysis of covariance models were used to test the effects of source selection method on pertinent procurement outcomes.FindingsThe trade-off (TO) source selection method increases PLT, as does the number of evaluation factors and the number of proposals received. Substantially larger sourcing teams are also associated with the TO source selection method. Nonetheless, the TO method results in better supplier performance.Practical implicationsTO source selections yield superior supplier performance than low-bidder methods. However, they are costly in terms of time and personnel. Any assessment of supplier value should consider not only the price premium for higher performance but also the transaction costs associated with the TO method.Originality/valueVery little research addresses a buying team's evaluation of supplier-offered value ex ante and whether that value assessment materializes into actual value-added supplier performance. Low bidder tactics are pervasive, but price (i.e. sacrifice) is only one component of value. Benefits from superior supplier performance may yield greater overall value. If value is critical to the buyer, a TO source selection method – versus a low-bidder approach – is the appropriate tool because of higher supplier performance ex post.
Tenth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium Acquisition Management ; Disclaimer: The views represented in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy position of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the federal government. ; Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium Acquisition Management ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Prepared for the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09574091111181354 ; Purpose – Performance-based logistics (PBL) strategies are providing governments and for-profit organizations with a contractual mechanism that reduces the life cycle costs of their systems. PBL accomplishes this by establishing contracts that focus on the delivery of performance not parts. PBL establishes a metric based governance structure where suppliers make more profit when they invest in logistics process improvements, or system redesign, that reduces total cost of ownership. While work has been done to outline an overall PBL theoretical framework, the underlying theory explaining the enablers that lead to organizational and team-level, team-goal alignment associated with the PBL governance structure requires testing. The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively test previously posited relationships between enablers of PBL and PBL effectiveness. An additional objective is to explore any differences in PBL effectiveness between different business sectors. ; This material is based upon work supported by the Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program under Grant No. N00244-10-1-0074.
