Why no involvement?

Good question. Maybe people are using ChatGPT to get their questions answered. We may have outlived our usefulness, @formerfed .

Nah. The information on WIFCON is lightyears ahead of anything ChatGPT can provide. There is way more experienced, relevant information provided here.

No offense to the usual heads, but, there's nothing I'm going to really get here that I won't from looking myself.

There really also isn't some burgeoning work or epiphanies here that will impact any change(s) in the current environment.

Whether that's comparing the FoRGED and SPEED Acts, staying on top of the absolute nothing-burgers/idiocy coming out of the "Revolutionary," FAR overhaul, quite frankly there's nothing to talk about until more changes.

Most of us are also now handling increased workloads due to D(E)RP 1/2/3.0, or staying off the news for sanity, let alone a forum to talk about work.

Self Employed said:

No offense to the usual heads, but, there's nothing I'm going to really get here that I won't from looking myself.

@Self Employed No offense taken.

The quality the information posted here is generally a reflection of the quality of the initial post in a thread. Most initial posts ask elementary questions. The answers are usually elementary. A journeyman contract specialist should not expect to learn much from such Q&As.

But this is is supposed to be a discussion board. Unfortunately, there is very little discussion of ideas here.

Contracting people do not seem to be idea people. They are task-focused. The just want a quick answer to a question in order to advance a process. WIFCON responses to such questions are generally adequate, but rarely interesting.

What would be an interesting question? How about this:

QUESTION: Does it make sense to apply the economic concept of "price" and the government concept of "fair and reasonable price" to contracts for major system development acquisitions such as the USAF sixth-generation F-47 fighter program? If not, then should FAR Subpart 15.4 as presently written apply to such acquisitions? If not, then how should we think about the dollar amounts to be stated in such contracts? What are they really? And what should FAR say about them?

Where would you "look" for answers to those questions, Self Employed?

Let's go back in time, in order to successfully move forwards. Bring back coursework similar to QMT 180, Learning Curve Analysis. There is an awful lot of great tools buried in the past, that we seem to have forgotten about. These old tools remain valuable even in this day and age, in my opinion.

On 6/23/2025 at 6:51 PM, Vern Edwards said:

What would be an interesting question? How about this:

QUESTION: Does it make sense to apply the economic concept of "price" and the government concept of "fair and reasonable price" to contracts for major system development acquisitions such as the USAF sixth-generation F-47 fighter program? If not, then should FAR Subpart 15.4 as presently written apply to such acquisitions? If not, then how should we think about the dollar amounts to be stated in such contracts? What are they really? And what should FAR say about them?

Related: Since so much of our emphasis on competition is about getting a good price, if we reject the concept of price for major systems development, what does that do to our ideas of competition?

My broad answer to this is to use capability based selection first, then negotiate price second. At the outset, that price isn't going to mean very much--it is an early estimate and no matter how much rigor goes into developing it, it will almost always be low. There is less competition available in large defense programs, so calibrating competition policies based on the national defense strategy seems wise. (I think it is a bad thing that one of our few remaining plane manufacturers, Boeing, seems to struggle to build planes.) It may require supporting multiple contractors for a period of time and factoring in which contractor has the most promising approach to the dual use of the tech. There's also the idea of lots of (relatively) small bets on incremental improvements and cheap technologies, rather than huge bets on individual weapon systems. I guess what I'm getting at is that the biggest defense programs bump up against national strategies almost immediately, and since we don't seem to do national strategy very well, inertia wins out. And that's partly why the defense industrial complex doesn't do as well today. All the FAR issues are downstream from that. (I could be wrong; I haven't worked in defense in 15+ years, but my most recent experience was on big energy projects that bumped into the same issues.)

Even more broadly, I'd take major weapon systems out of the FAR and apply different rules to them. It's a shame that we train on them at all--most people don't work on them and they are so significantly different that it is a totally different skill set than the base level/operational contracting skill set.

KeithB18 said:

My broad answer to this is to use capability based selection first, then negotiate price second.

l agree wholeheartedly. The A-E selection process should be used for contractor selection and contract formation for all major system procurements and procurements for long-term complex services. I first proposed that in an article published in 1997 and in several articles since. Our current competitive negotiation process dates from the 19th Century.

Vern Edwards said:

l agree wholeheartedly. The A-E selection process should be used for contractor selection and contract formation for all major system procurements and procurements for long-term complex services. I first proposed that in an article published in 1997 and in several articles since. Our current competitive negotiation process dates from the 19th Century.

Apologies, the first draft of my post credited you. Your work on the subject has influenced me a lot.