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In keeping with applicable Federal, state, and local acquisition regulations, transportation agencies have a variety of options for issuing soliciting support for Systems Engineering activities. For an individual project, several different contracts can be issued using several contracting approaches. Coordination with the contract administration staff of the procuring transportation agency is vital in making good choices in the contracting process. Errors in the procurement process can lead to bid protests and lawsuits, which can extensively delay progress on project implementation. The topics discussed below are frequently used in ITS procurements, but represent only a subset of the available approaches to gaining support in project implementation. In all cases, the contract language needs to closely coordinated with legal and administrative departments to assure that proper selections can be made.
A Request for Information (RFI) is a pre-contract process that allows the contractor community relevant to a specific project interact with the procuring transportation agency and stakeholder community. The transportation agency requests input from interested parties on plans for a specific project. The procuring agency has wide latitude in the detail included in the project plans that are part of an RFI. The agency may be interested in gaining industry input into the products and services available in the marketplace, the current market conditions, and the vendors available to supply the needs of the project. In many cases, any type of organization can respond, with responses frequently coming from contractors that would implement the project under a future contract, consultants that are available to advise the transportation agency, vendors with applicable products, and industry societies with topic expertise. Responses also frequently come from advocacy groups that feels that their constituency can be impacted by the project such as environmental groups, neighborhood associations, and disability rights groups. Private citizens may be allowed to submit responses.
An RFI is one of the exchanges with industry prior to proposals that is identified in Federal Acquisition Regulations (48 CFR § 15.201). Responders are frequently invited to one-on-one meetings to further discuss information provided. An RFI cannot lead directly to a contract award. While RFIs are frequently issued with the intent of preparing for a future contract, the issuing of an RFI does not guarantee any future contracting opportunity.
Ideally, an RFI is issued with sufficient time prior to the scheduled project development to allow information from responders to provide input on the project. The procuring agency needs to consult with their contract administrators to assure that the RFI is in keeping with applicable regulations. Topics to assure compliance with include extent of publication of the RFI, acceptable RFI responders, necessary handling and publication of RFI responses, extent of consideration of RFI responses, and requirements for RFI response for notification of future contract correspondence or qualification for RFP responses.
A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is a formal process to determine the ability of responding bidders to perform a desired piece of work. The RFQ details the required capabilities, resources, experience, and credentials required to perform an upcoming project along with plans for the project. In some cases, the RFQ can include specific requirements for an individual project to be designed. In other cases, the RFQ can be targeted at needed capabilities for the winning firm to be able to create a design or to accomplish tasks earlier in the Systems Engineering process, such as developing a Concept of Operations or producing requirements.
RFQs can lead either directly to a contract or lead to additional steps to acquire contracted support. One type of selection process resulting from an RFQ is Qualifications Based Selection (QBS). QBS selects the most qualified bidder to perform a designated piece of work to enter into negotiation for a contract. Cost is not a factor in selecting the most qualified bidder, but is a major topic in contract negotiations. If an acceptable contract cannot be negotiated with the firm determined most qualified, the contracting agency may enter negotiations with the firm determined to be next most qualified. The use of QBS was institutionalized with the introduction of the Brooks Act (Public Law 92-582) related to the selection of Architects and Engineers, which was enacted into US law in 1972. Many states have laws similar to the Brooks Act for state contract work.
RFQs are also used as a basis for selection of contract support where details of upcoming work are not fully determined consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (48 CFR § 16.504). Many transportation agencies offer the opportunity for engineering firms to establish contracts where the scope of work to be performed is undetermined, but the skills needed for typical upcoming work can be adequately described. Indefinite quantities contracts, which are also called indefinite delivery/indefinite quantities (IDIQ), provide a framework for negotiating scope for future work items in a task order. Such contracts are frequently used for initial project work using an existing IDIQ contract either assigned to a single firm or competed among a small number of firms with indefinite quantities contracts. The specifics of the administration of the task-order contracts related to limits in scope, value, allowed assignments, and competition vary based on the regulations of the transportation agency.
RFQs can be used as a prequalification for responding to a future contract solicitation. RFQs are typically used as a way to limit the number of proposers for major infrastructure projects, which frequently include significant content in addition to ITS tasks. The development of a reduced bidders list both limits the resources required by the owner to evaluate the full proposals and attempts to improve the investment potential bidders are will to make to produce high-quality proposals. Once a reduced bidders list is determined based on qualifications, subsequent phases request either detailed build proposals or significant efforts to develop a proposed design. In some cases, bidders are supported in the development of proposals with a monetary stipend.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a formal process to determine the ability of responding bidders to perform a desired piece of work. The RFP details the required capabilities needed in a system or service to be procured. While the RFP can include skills, experience, and qualifications of staff members, the majority of the RFP presents the requirements of the procurement. In build contracts, the RFP also includes the design to be implemented.
While proposals are usually evaluated based on the lowest responsive bid, other evaluation factors including qualifications and proposed design can be included in the selection criteria to determine a best value. The best value approach combines elements of qualification scoring with cost factors. Federal Acquisition Regulations (48 CFR § 15.101-1) acknowledge the advantages of considering award to other than the lowest priced offeror. To establish the best value, evaluation factors that will affect the selection and their relative importance need to be presented in the solicitation. Significant latitude is routinely allowed in solicitations in determining the important factors, based on knowledge of the involved agencies and their support contractors, provided that the criteria is clearly stated and a rationale for the factors is documented. Best value contracting has a history of protests against award lodged by a lower-cost offeror, with some protests having proven successful.
An Invitation to Bid (ITB) is a formal process to determine the ability of responding bidders to provide a desired product or service. The ITB details the required capabilities needed in a system or service to be procured. While the ITB can include skills, experience, and qualifications of staff members, the majority of the ITB presents the details of the product or service to be provided. As compared to an RFP, an ITB is designed to be more specific about the requested product or service. In transportation applications, an ITB is frequently used to purchase specific devices for use in existing or developmental systems.
Public-Private partnerships (PPP or P3) are used to establish a unique relationship between public sector organizations and private sector entities. The purpose of such a relationship is to accomplish public-sector goals by leveraging efficiencies available in the private sector. In transportation applications, PPP use public resources such as roadway right-of-way to facility construction of toll lanes installation of communication infrastructure. The public sector achieves a public good such as improved transportation options or communication to ITS devices at little or no cost. The private sector offers a new or improved service for a fee, with the hope of turning a profit. Any type of contracting approach can be used with a PPP, depending on the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions involved. Creation of PPPs require significant coordination with acquisition and legal departments.
This section will discuss the use of the design-bid-build process and the design-build process for the design and implementation portion of ITS projects and projects with significant ITS content. An introduction to the Construction Manager At Risk (CMAR) will be included.
Construction
of transportation facilities have traditionally been focused on the physical
construction of roadways. departments of transportation have developed the necessary
resources to construct such facilities with skill and efficiency. The projects
are selected from those developed from on ongoing transportation planning
process, such as one resulting in a Transportation Improvement Plan, which
considers the existing roadway infrastructure and deficiencies in the condition
or capacities of the infrastructure.
The advent of implementation of electronic systems has necessitated additional approaches to implement transportation infrastructure. The roadway inventory has expanded to include communications, networking, and processing assets. The skill set required for such implementations has evolved, suggesting that additional implementation models can be advantageous.
Traditionally, transportation departments accomplish construction projects using a design-bid-build process. In this process, an engineering design organization develops a set of plans for a project along with related documentation such as estimates, specifications, and special provisions. After the department that will own the constructed facility reviews and accepts the design, the department asks for bids from qualified firms for construction of the facility. A construction contract is executed with the firm bidding the lowest price, using the services of in-house or contract engineers using inspections, tests, and/or evaluations to assure that the facility is adequately constructed.
This model has proven highly successful for road-building contracts. The skills needed for design and construction are typically at different firms. Many employees of the transportation department have experience in similar construction and can manage the projects.
Use of the Design-Bid-Build model allows an owner to issue one or several contracts to leverage the skill set available in both in-house staff and support contractors. The final contract prior to the bid is issued to an engineering or architecture firm for the creation of required documents including biddable design documents. Prior to this contract, the owner may acquire services from other members of their support contractors to develop project architectures, develop or refine project concepts, interact with stakeholders including the public, develop Systems Engineering approaches, and create a stable environment for the creation of the biddable design documents.
Design-Build is a method of project delivery where the system owner issues a single contract for the execution of design and construction services. The approach hopes to both streamline the administration of the contract by reducing the number of contracts and to streamline the technical aspects of the project by improving the flow of information and the incentives for cooperation between the designers and the builder.
Design-Build development processes are typical of technology projects where the designers and the implementers share significant skills and knowledge. In this process, the owner issues a single contract with a team of contractors who collectively offer all of the skills necessary to progress a project through the implementation phase. While a contractor may bid individually for a Design-Build contract, it is typical that all of the specialties required for a contract would be most efficiently acquired from several firms.
Most frequently, a Design-Build process is initiated once the conceptual phases for a project have reached a high level of stability. In this situation, the Design-Builder can offer a reliable approach to progressing the work along with an aggressive pricing basis. In some circumstances, a Design-Build process can be initiated earlier in the process of stabilizing the project concepts. The earlier initiation has some advantage in progressing the work more quickly, but introduces risks in the ability to accurately estimate costs of the project and introducing broader skill sets into the contract.
The Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) is a delivery method that entails a commitment by a system manager or general contractor to deliver the project within a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP)), which is based on the design or requirements documents and specifications at the time of the GMP plus any reasonably inferred items or tasks. The CMAR provides professional services and acts as a consultant to the owner in the design development and construction implementation phases. Often times, the CMAR also provides some of the actual construction of the project depending on the availability of bidders and the expertise the company has. CMAR is similar to the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC) process.
Most agencies involved in ITS are not able to retain sufficient in-house engineering talent to perform Systems Engineering for significantly-sized projects. Moreover, Systems Engineering is a talent that is not routinely present in a Department of Transportation or a Public Works department, giving rise to difficulty in hiring and career development for the Systems Engineering specialty.
Even when agencies responsible for ITS project development acquire technical assistance for performance of Systems Engineering activities, some activities will be of sufficient size and complexity that the agency staff will not have the specialized knowledge or available staff effort to effectively manage the project activities. In these situations, the agency should consider contracting for the execution and management of Systems Engineering activities. Depending on the scope of the project and agency resources, a combination of self-performance, contracted performance, and contracted monitoring support can be considered, with each phase in the Systems Engineering process considered independently.
The tasks to be performed within a Systems Engineering process have been presented in Section 3.3. Systems Engineering requires that certain activities are completed. While the lead agency for a project, who is referred to frequently as the “owner”, should assure that the activity is satisfactorily completed, the lead agency has options in terms of which activities that it would like to perform and which activities it would like to acquire from outside. Table 16 summarizes the responsibilities that rest with the lead organization along with alternatives for performing the activities. Table 13 shows potential considerations in assessing the success of the activities in each phase.
The simplest manner in which to perform Systems Engineering tasks is to assign staff from the lead agency responsible for a project to perform the tasks and submit the Systems Engineering products for acceptance by the agency managers. The most attractive characteristics of this approach are the direct influence that an owner can exert over the process and the ability to execute a project without coordination with departments responsible for the contracting process. However, this approach has several technical and organizational challenges that must be overcome for self- performance to be completed at low risk. The challenges discussed below include in-house staffing, disciplined management, and objective evaluation.
Staffing is the most common problem encountered by agencies that would like to self-perform an ITS project. The tasks associated with efficiently using a specialized Systems Engineer or Systems Engineering department presents significant management obstacles. Providing a workload that matches available resources places constraints on the ability of a transportation agency to respond to the unavoidable variability in project volume. Staff turnover in a small department can also present issues in completion of projects and finding replacement staff with a similar skill set.
When in-house staff are used without participation of technical, administrative, or user representatives from outside a transportation organization, project managers can succumb to pressure to complete a project by shortcutting prudent processes. Significant discipline is required on the part of the project management and the staff serving as Systems Engineer to persist in producing a product to the quality mandated in the project or Systems Engineering plan. In cases where Systems Engineering processes are curtailed to meet cost, schedule, or political constraints, placing an item into a risk register as part of risk management can keep the incompleteness of the SE products a visible topic.
Evaluation done by agency staff have both the appearance of bias and the incentive to report success. An evaluator who was involved in the project has knowledge of the development history, giving him insight into the desired results and operation. An evaluator who works for the system owner may be reluctant to criticize the product of his supervisor. Since the evaluation is performed following completion of the project, schedule pressure is usually not a cause for a questionable evaluation.
Self-performance addresses the issue of institutional knowledge retention frequently found in contracting approaches. A team member from a previously completed project that is retained on staff vastly aids in updating that project when revisions are needed, whether from exposed defects in the original implementation, from efficiency improvement opportunities based on improved technology, of from evolving needs that the project can meet.
Most ITS projects will acquire project services for execution of one or more SE activities by contracting with an outside party. The practices used to issue the contract and the scope of the contract(s) can vary based on the nature of the project and the capabilities of the lead agency.
Most contracts to perform SE tasks are procured using Qualifications Based Selection (QBS). QBS is designed for selection of architects and engineers. The approach attempts to acquire services of the most skilled and qualified staff, with cost being a secondary consideration.
Some Design-Build contracts incorporate Systems Engineering into the design phase of the contract. This approach can result in incentives to underfund SE or use less experienced staff to reduce costs, since cost is usually a factor in Design-Build contracts. While this process is in conflict with the concept of acquiring engineering, services based on skills and qualification, the cost of the SE work is commonly minor in the budget of the overall contract.
For some ITS projects that require specialized design expertise or that have scope beyond the ability of the owner to monitor, the responsibility to monitor the performance of Systems Engineering will be acquired for one or more SE activities by contracting with an outside party. The practices used to issue the contract and the scope of the contract(s) can vary based on the nature of the project and the capabilities of the lead agency.
Table 16: SE Performance Options
|
SE Task |
Owner Objective |
Owner may |
Contractor or owner may |
Owner must |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Involve all stakeholders |
Convene stakeholders |
Acquire stakeholder engagement help |
Interact with stakeholders |
Participate and approve findings |
|
Determine schedule and budget |
Acquire adequate funding |
Perform estimation and seek cost sharing |
Negotiate with stakeholders for consensus |
Approve schedule, budget, and agreements |
|
Apply appropriate rigor to SE efforts |
Decide on appropriate SE rigor |
Acquire SE assessment services |
Recommend appropriate SE rigor |
Decide on appropriate SE rigor |
|
a. Know what problem is being solved |
a. Know what problem is being solved |
Acquire project conceptualization assistance |
Develop project concepts and goals |
Approve project concepts and goals |
|
b. Know how the system will operate |
b. Know how the system will operate |
Acquire concept of operations support |
Develop concept of operations |
Approve concept of operations |
|
c. Detail specific functions and behaviors |
c. Approve required functions and behaviors |
Acquire requirements development support |
Develop detailed requirements |
Approve detailed requirements |
|
d. Know how the system will be implemented |
d. Know how the system will be implemented |
Acquire design and implementation services or engineering review services |
Design and implement system |
Approve design |
|
e. Assure the system is implemented properly |
e. Assure the system is implemented properly |
Acquire testing services or engineering review services |
Test system |
Approve test results |
|
f. Assure the problem was solved |
f. Assure the problem was solved |
Acquire evaluation services |
Evaluate system |
Approve evaluation results |
|
g. Know how the system will be retired |
g. Know how the system will be retired |
Acquire decommissioning planning |
Determine decommissioning process |
Approve decommissioning plan |
|
Assure that all phases are complete |
Approve completion of all phases |
Acquire project management support |
Asses project completeness |
Approve completion of all phases |
|
Assess in house skills |
Assess in house skills |
Acquire capability assessment |
Evaluate staff and organizational capability |
Select SE performance approach |
|
Track progress quantitatively |
Track progress quantitatively |
Acquire management services |
Acquire capability assessment |
Evaluate staff and organizational capability |
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