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Providing Fair Opportunity Through SEWP

Special Report: SEWP

By Jeff Erlichman

So, how does one satisfy Fair Opportunity/Competition Requirements when using a SEWP contract? According to the SEWP website, FAR 16.505(b) (1) provides that each contractor shall be given fair opportunity to be considered for each order exceeding $3,000 and issued under multiple award contracts. At a minimum, to provide Fair Opportunity, all Contract Holders within any one of the individual competed Groups must be provided Opportunity.

For maximum competition one, two, three or all Groups can be selected. The SEWP online RFI/RFQ tool is the recommended method to assist in this activity and to augment the required decision documentation. The FAR states that the method to obtain Fair Opportunity is at the discretion of the CO and that the CO must document the rationale for placement and price of each order. The search capability provides a summary comparison of the requirements based on part numbers. These SEWP tools will automatically include the vendors within a selected Group in the RFQ/search process. The RFQ tool will e-mail an RFQ to the vendors with various options for a reply. Fair Opportunity is only required within a specific group, and not across all Groups.

Use the System

“It helps everything the customer does,” explained Woytek. “The customer doesn’t have to know what it means to use Fair Opportunity, they just have to use our system and it leads them into Fair Opportunity and they like that.” Within SEWP, Fair Opportunity is held within a group. This makes sure there is competition within the major Groups.

If needed, opportunities may be provided across multiple groups.

“That’s what Fair Opportunity provides for”, said Woytek. “No matter what you do, if you don’t always have continuous internal competition in any contract, it gets stale or you can’t get the best pricing.” There is no “three quote rule” within SEWP. Customers must just give Fair Opportunity within the Groups. If they get one response or ten, that’s OK said Woytek.

“This sort of forces Fair Opportunity competition within the Groups,” noted Woytek. “People must use it correctly. That’s the main thing we want to make sure of, that people know what we have and how to use it.”

SEWP SCOOPS!

Conference SEWP

It used to be a small retreat where customers and contractors came together to brainstorm, meet one another and talk about technology and customer service. Three years later, the attendance has tripled in size. Now it is the SEWP Conference.

“It’s a conference now. People want to get trained and want more detail,” Joanne Woytek, SEWP PM explained. “For the first time, we had tracks – a newcomers’ track and the experienced track. Now we can give them more in-depth training.”

Also new for 2009 were the agency specific meetings. Held the day prior to the Conference, SEWP staff met with agency management, program management and COs from DOD, Veterans’ Affairs, NASA and EPA.

So, if you attend the 2010 SEWP Conference, be prepared to participate. The 2010 SEWP Conference will be held in Orlando, FL in May. Mark your calendar now.

Expanding The Conversation

While the SEWP conference is only open to government customers and SEWP contract holders, the SEWP Industry Day is open to the private sector and non-SEWP contract holders.

“We realized that we needed something for industry becausethey wanted to interact with us and learn more about the contract,”said Joanne Woytek, SEWP PM.

“We did an Industry Day in Washington, DC. We now have them twice a year now. They are a half day of meetings and anybody from industry can attend,” said Woytek. “It doesn’t matter if they know about SEWP or they don’t know about SEWP or they have no clue what they are doing, or they just want to learn about federal contracts.”

The event is open and free. Contact SEWP for details.