FAA gives 245 small firms preferred contracting status

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded 29 percent of its $3.5 billion procurement budget in fiscal 2009 to small businesses.

And James Washington, FAA's chief acquisition officer, expects that percentage only to increase in the coming years.

This is especially true after FAA awarded 245 contracts, or master ordering agreements in the agency's acquisition language, to small businesses late last month to provide a variety of support services. The FAA doesn't follow the Federal Acquisition Regulations and has its own set of procurement rules.

Washington says master ordering agreements, though, are synonymous with contracts.

"This emphasizes the importance of working with small businesses," says Washington after he spoke Thursday at the National Contract Management Association conference in Bethesda, Md. "We established a multiple award vehicle which is exclusive to the FAA and exclusive to these 245 vendors. They can use this as a hunting license in terms of approaching various program offices and identifying what they have been pre-qualified to do in response to FAA requirements."

Under the seven-year, $2 billion Electronic FAA Accelerated and Simplified Tasks (E-FAST) contract, the vendors will provide services including:

• Air transportation support
• Business administration and management
• Computer/information systems development
• Computer systems support
• Documentation and training
• Maintenance and repair
• Research and development
• Systems engineering

Washington says having this many contractors under an exclusive FAA contract provides several benefits.

"This is an approach that really gives us greater flexibility and the opportunity to achieve cost savings," he says. "We can issue a direct award in two weeks and for a competitive award we can turn things around in six weeks or less."

He adds that FAA negotiated prices with the vendors that "far exceed" discount prices on the General Services Administration's schedules.

Washington credits the awarding of this contract and the overall success of FAA's small business program to the cooperation and collaboration across the agency, led by the small business advocate.

"The way they get the word out there and keep their Web site updated that identifies capabilities of various small businesses and matching their capabilities with FAA requirements is really the key," he says. "We are trying to look at different approaches and different ideas that come largely from the small business community about how to innovate the process to match vendor capabilities with our problems, but also to introduce concepts and technologies into the way FAA meets our mission."

Like most agencies, the FAA is spending a lot of energy trying to increase its acquisition workforce. Washington says 2009 was the first year in the last four the agency hired more employees to do acquisition work than it lost by attrition. The agency gained between 25 to 38 contracting workers.

"The pressure is on us to continue that trend," he says. "The total acquisition workforce need is to hire 350 new professionals in the FAA over the next two years. That is both to support our NextGen mission as well as the more legacy acquisition programs."

The FAA is trying to make those workers life a little easier as well. Washington says the FAA issued market survey looking for a vendor to automate many of its contracting processes.

The FAA wants a system to manage the contract process, improve the data it receives and integrate the data with other financial and management systems.

Washington expects a request for proposals should come out early in January and an award is expected later in 2010.

Additionally, the FAA is looking for 8(a) and service disabled veteran owned small businesses to provide technology products and services under its Strategic Sourcing for the Acquisition of Various Equipment and Supplies (SAVES) Program. The agency issued a market survey Nov. 5.

-----
On the Web:

FAA - E-FAST

FAA - Acquisition management RFI

FedBizOpps.gov - SAVES IT market survey notice

FederalNewsRadio - Chopra brings collaboration and innovation to CTO role

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)