Essay Sample on Logistics and Acquisition Succes: Key Stages of Procurement

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Posted on August 28, 2013

Procurement is the process of making acquisition for goods and services from an external source to the company. Companies and organizations procure the services of external organization whenever need arises. Different types of contracts exist, and the choices made by an organization depend on the nature of the services that they want procured. Contracts differ based on the cost, timeline and technicalities. This explains the existence of the different types of contracts. These types include lump sum or firm fixed price contract, retainer/contingency contract and indefinite delivery contract.

Acquisition success is the complete award of a contract without any protests witnessed among any of the participants. However, the company needs a clear planning in order for them to achieve the desires of the contracts and their capabilities as outlined in the request for proposal. Therefore, Planning is highly significant in order to succeed in the case of IDE technical support acquisition tender. Prior to releasing of the request for proposal document, the company should have a pre-market survey to enable them have a clear work plan that is in line with the current market conditions. This creates an opportunity for accessing the risks and opportunities that this contract offers and how to counter these risks without making a loss (US Department of States, 2011).

The best acquisition method for this statement of work is the formal acquisition method. This includes the sealed bidding or negotiation. The sealed bidding is made up of competitive bids that are pre-sealed by the vendors before submission to the government agencies.

IDEX technical support statement of work clearly defines the scope of work that the contract entails. The provision of technical support manager, system analyst and production support specialist has a clear set timeline and value. This shows the nature of the bid that such a contract may include. Lump sum contracts are mostly used in a situation where the service being outsourced for has a specified time frame. All the above listed services require completion within a period of 2000 hours. Payment for these services is based on the feasibility of the results. A clearly specified output guarantees payment for the services offered as part of the procurement document (Rumbaugh, 2010).

Solicitation is defined as the acquisition of quotation, bids, offers or proposals as the need may be. At this stage of procurement stage, the product documents and sources are presented to the contract board. Under this stage, the request for proposal is mostly presented to the team. This is a document that is used in the solicitation of proposals from prospective sellers of goods and services. Source selection criteria are the process of comprehensively evaluating bidders for a given tender as per the terms of the contract (Rumbaugh, 2010)

The federal acquisition regulation is a set of regulations set by the federal government of the United States. Federal acquisition regulation has several tenets and clauses that are meant to guide the process of procurement and contractual settlement. It majorly governs the process of acquisition of goods and services by the government. The clauses of solicitation under the FAR are contained in section 52. The contracts that are mean to acquire commercial and technical services are under these clauses (Department of Defense, 2008).

The first clause has the instructions to the offerors which include the set of instructions and regulations that shall be employed when soliciting for commercial goods and services. The second clause has the offerors representations and certifications. This carries an entailed list of representations and certification for the process of acquisition for goods and services.

Clause three provides details on the terms and conditions of the contract which must be adhered to in the process of executing the contract. The fourth clause describes the terms and conditions required for the implementation of statutes and executive orders. The buy American and balance of payment program is the next clause that gives details on the acquisition procedure for goods that are available locally (Department of Defense, 2008).

The source selection strategies create an opportunity for choosing better and beneficial evaluation factors to the bidders. Contracting officers are designated the source selection evaluation role. As such, they are supposed to establish a team that is geared towards a specific acquisition objective. They are also supposed to approve the source selection or acquisition strategy for finalizing the solicitation process (US Department of States, 2011).

There are a number of source selection evaluation criteria that can be used in the process of determining the best service provider depends. The price or the cost that shall be incurred is given major consideration in the source selection evaluation criteria. The price that is considered affordable should have great quality attributes so as to ensure quality for the money charged. The technical excellence, management capability, great personnel pool and prior experience in serving similar contracts are also important considerations. The small business subcontracting participation is also an essential source selection evaluation criterion (US Department of States, 2011).

The process of awarding a contract is governed under the federal laws of the United States of America. Under these laws, every contract follows a specified timeline, procedure while adhering to the set rules. The preparation of the solicitation and the request for proposal documents are important before the bidding process can be started. This enables the bidding firms to be aware of the nature of services they will offer.

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