23rd CONS takes AF award

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Eric Schloeffel
  • 23rd Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (ACCNS) --  A Moody contracting flight was recently recognized with an Air Force-level award for their ability to work efficiently and improve their operating procedures.

The 23rd Contracting Squadron Infrastructure Flight won a 2006 Air Force Special Recognition Award for Multiple Award Construction Contract team for their ability to work with several contractors to streamline acquisition practices. The flight primarily supports the 23rd Civil Engineer Squadron in construction, services, supply and equipment requirements.

"We solicited 12 firms to make multiple awards to six different contractors selected on a basis of their past performance records," said Howard Dodds, 23rd CONS Infrastructure flight chief. "The process was set up to enable contractors to submit proposals based on government design with a compressed lead time.

"Additionally, we went through a source selection process and incorporated two sample projects for price evaluation that were high on the wing priority list for funding," he added. "We ended up being able to award both of these projects at the end of the fiscal year."

The benefits of early negotiation with multiple contractors are paramount to saving the wing time and money for other projects, said Lt. Col. Eric Brewington, 23rd CONS commander.

"At the end of the fiscal year, there are a multitude of priorities for construction, and money often becomes accessible to us only during this time," he said. "The flight's proposal process allows us to simply tag the contractors, because the gauntlet of paperwork is already completed. We basically have contractors on-call for us, which reduces the contracting process by 50 percent."

In many situations, contracting squadrons can't obligate money received late in the fiscal year, and as a result, opportunities are lost to improve their base, said Colonel Brewington.

"The end of the fiscal year is usually hectic for a contracting office; people are typically scrambling in front of the computer to get contracts negotiated, approved and awarded," he said. "(Applying early negotiations) allows us to posture for awarding projects if we receive extra money late in the year. This is important because if you aren't efficient and fail to obligate money in a timely manner, the wing commander can't use it for anything else."

In the past, the contracting process would begin with the advertisement of a solicitation for at least 30 days before the actual award, said Mr. Dodds.

"Our system eliminates the solicitation and advertising process and can reduce a 90-day process to sometimes a matter of days," he said. "The other major benefit is the system fosters competition which leads to lower prices. We will have six qualified contractors competing on each one of our projects."

The new process was implemented after Mr. Dodds and several 23rd CES members traveled to Langley Air Force Base, Va., to evaluate their contracting and engineering staff's blueprint for the Multiple Award Construction Contract process.

"We looked at what they recently accomplished and selected processes that we thought would work well at Moody," he said. "This is a new concept, and we expanded it with some of our own innovation to set us up for success."

As a result of the new way of doing business, the squadron is better prepared for future challenges, said Colonel Brewington.

"In the past, we couldn't award as fast and efficient," he said. "We know our manning is going to be cut, experience level will go down and deployments won't end anytime soon - now we have the ability to handle the workload even if it increases. This process allows us to get contracts handled early and minimizes negative impacts on our mission."