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From Missile Ranger A-76/Competitive Sourcing
“My objective as the garrison commander is to have two-way communication throughout this process,” Giebel said. “I truly realize what’s at stake here, personally, professionally and from a White Sands Garrison standpoint.” Public Works and Logistics are the foundations upon which all of the other work done at White Sands rests. Water, electricity, heat, air-conditioning, vehicles and their maintenance, facilities and their maintenance, supplies and storage are just the most obvious responsibilities the DPW and DOL teams shoulder. Competitive sourcing asks whether some of the work being done by these federal civilian employees can be done more efficiently by a private contractor. Just as Lockheed Martin and Boeing compete over the contract for a missile system, the DOL/DPW team must now prepare a detailed proposal to compete with outside bidders to continue to provide services to White Sands Missile Range. Before the contracting officer can solicit bids, all of the employees involved need to contribute a great deal of information to create another document, called a Performance Work Statement, or PWS. The PWS describes what is expected from the service provider. It tracks necessary facilities, equipment and property. It details the output of individuals and teams whether they do the same tasks every day or have workloads that fluctuate over time. Everything is costed, and in the end, these costs will be compared to the other bidders. The PWS Team Leader is Daisan Taylor-Glass. In a process that began Tuesday and will continue weekly while the PWS is being developed, DOL and DPW employees are completing workload statements recording what they do on the job. “If your workload is variable over time, we have to use historical data or we have to give our best estimate of what your future output will be,” said Deborah King. King said PWS writers will try to minimize the disruption to each employee’s workday as data collection moves forward, but she stressed the importance of teamwork in creating the best bid possible. “Everyone will be involved,” she said. “Whether you’re management or an employee, you’re the expert at what you do, so we need 110-percent cooperation in order to write a good PWS.” Giebel agreed. “I can’t express how critical this collection of data is,” he said. A PWS team will collate, analyze and keep track of the workload statements. All A-76 information will be maintained as “for official use only” and “procurement sensitive.” DPW members on the PWS team include Tom Klumb (functional leader), Jeff Andersen, Maria Jennings, Jim Bowman, Nancy Hilton, Wilbert Ortega and T.A. Ladd. DOL members of the PWS team include Deborah King (functional leader), Wayne Rossman, Chris Hunter and Martin Jennings. The PWS team also includes specialists from throughout the garrison: Bill Fugelso from the JAG office, Doug Bubp from Finance, Jim Parnham from Contracting and Jim Kielty from CPAC. Serge Drillock, Herb Kai and Daryl Lott are specialists who have been brought in to assist with the writing of the A-76 package. These teams will not be preparing the PWS in a vacuum. They will bring drafts of individual sections back to the relevant employees regularly for review and input. The plan is for the PWS to be 50 percent complete by Feb. 8, 2007. At that point, the Most Efficient Organization, or MEO (the government bid), and other potential bidders can begin work on their proposals. Deputy to the Garrison Commander Ron Hickok and Paul Treat from the Test Center LEAN Team are responsible for preparing the MEO. The MEO team also includes Directorate of Logistics employees Pete Pinon, Greg Balderrama and A.C. Scott. Members from the Directorate of Public Works include Patrick Morrow, Chris Hahn and Wes Hoffman. The timeline calls for the PWS to be complete and submitted to the contracting officer by June 12, 2007. The contracting officer will be different than announced at the last all-hands meeting on July 28. The new contracting officer is Ann Sanchez from Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. On Jan. 25, 2008, the affected employees will learn if all of this effort has earned them the right to continue performing their DPW and DOL missions as federal civilian employees. “The winner will be the one who submits the lowest bid and who is determined to have at least the minimum technical skill to do the job,” King explained. However, to get the job, an outside contractor must beat the government bid by $10 million or 10 percent, whichever is less, she added. The chosen service provider, whether government or contractor, is scheduled to begin work on April 29, 2008. This competitive-sourcing effort is different from previous rounds in a few ways. Teams have the full 18 months to work the process, rather than a condensed time period. There is also a non-responsive clause in this process; submissions that are incomplete by the deadline date will not be considered. Lastly, even if government employees win the right to continue doing this work, their contract can be terminated if their performance doesn’t meet the standards outlined in the agreement. “It can be terminated like any other contract,” King said. After the briefing, employees asked Giebel and the PWS and MEO team leaders how the Garrison can expect to compete with outside bidders when the Army’s current financial situation has left it short on staff, parts and equipment. Giebel said that rather than wring his hands over the issue, he chooses to roll up his sleeves. “I can’t change the dollars you don’t have and the wood you can’t use to build; what I can do is rely on your expertise and your years of experience to capture the workload that otherwise you would be doing if you had the money and the tools,” he said. Giebel explained that the bid being prepared will be based on the work requirements, not what assets are on hand or even what assets are supposed to be on hand. If more personnel and equipment are required to do the job, they will be in the plan, even if they are not present now. “Capture what it takes to run this garrison from a requirements standpoint on a day-to-day basis,” Giebel said. “That’s what the PWS team wants to hear from you. They don’t want to hear you don’t have the money or you don’t have the parts. They want to hear that if you did have the parts and did have the money, how long would it take to fix a certain thing.” Employees also expressed frustration that the A-76 process was taking personnel and time away from an already overburdened workforce. Giebel agreed that this was true at every level of the Garrison, but he reaffirmed that putting together the best bid on behalf of DOL and DPW workers is crucial. “I’d like to tell you that a whole team [of outsiders] comes in here so everyone can go back to their areas and contribute to the rest of you who are not part of the PWS team,” he said. “But I can’t do that. I’m building a team to gather all of this data, and it’s taking away from the workforce. But the best thing I can do is put our own people on this PWS team because they can better reflect the work you do.” Competitive sourcing is one of five components of the President's Management Agenda, now five years old. The others are strategic management of human capital, improved financial performance, expanded electronic government, and budget and performance integration. Updates on the A-76/Competitive Sourcing process will be posted on the Garrison and Test Center websites, both available through WSMR’s main web page, www.wsmr.army.mil. The Missile Ranger is also archiving all related stories on an A-76/Competitive Sourcing link now posted at www.missileranger.com. The next monthly A-76/Competitive Sourcing all-hands meeting is scheduled for Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. in the Post Theater. |
