Procurement Statement Of Work

The work to be done on each procurement is called procurement statement of work. The procurement statement of work must be clear, complete and as concise as possible. It should also describe the work and activities that the seller is required to complete. The activities also include meetings, reports and communications.

Types Of Procurement Statements Of Work

• Procurement; this conveys what the final product should be able to accomplish.

• Functional; this conveys the end purpose or the results than the specific procedures or approach

Design; this type precisely conveys what work is to be done.

Design procurements statement of work is most commonly used in construction and equipment purchasing. Performance and functional procurements statement of work is used in areas that have never been done before such as Information systems, information technology, research and development, etc.

Contract Types

The project manager selects the type of contract basis the purchase of a product or a service, the completeness of the statement of work, the level of effort and expertise the buyer can devote to the seller, whether incentives are involved for the seller, the enterprise environmental factors, etc.

The three broad categories of contracts are:

• Fixed price (FP)

• Time and Material (T&M)

• Cost Reimbursable (CR)

Fixed Price (FP, Or Lump Sum, Or Firm Fixed Price)

The acquiring of goods or services with well-defined specifications or requirements and when there is enough competition to determine a fair and reasonable fixed price, these are the situations where a fixed price contract is used. These are the most common types of contracts. The seller bears additional costs if the costs are more than agreed upon costs. The buyer has the least cost risk in this type of contract. The seller is duly concerned with the specifications provided in the procurement Statement of Work (SOW).

A fixed price contract is inappropriate when either of the parties (buyer or the seller) do not have expertise or past experience to prepare the procurement statement of work or have detailed accounting records.

There are situations where companies are not having a complete know-how of the tasks to be done and even when the scope is incomplete, they ask the sellers to provide a fixed price. This leads to:

• Forcing the seller to accept high level of risk.

• Seller needs to add huge amount of reserves to cover their risks and the buyer then pays more than otherwise required.

• Smart sellers can easily increase profits by cutting the scope of work and claim that work the buyer wants requires change as it is outside the contract.
  
• In case if the seller realizes that he is not making any profits there is a risk that the seller might try to remove some work that is described in the contract, take actions to save money, decrease quality, take the best people out of the project, among others.

Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF)

In an FPIF contract, profits are adjusted based on the seller meeting performance criteria in a progressive manner such as completing the work in a cheaper way, faster and better. FPIF contract involves successive targets given to the sellers, in which the target for the incentive is changed after the first target is reached.

FIXED PRICE AWARD FEE (FPAF)

In a FPAF contract, the buyer pays a fixed price plus an award amount (a bonus) based on performance. This is very similar to an FPIF contract, except the total possible award amount is determined in advance and apportioned out based on performance.

Fixed Price Economic Price Adjustment (FPEPA)

If there are uncertainties about future economic conditions (future prices) for contracts that exist for a multi-year period, a buyer might choose a fixed price contract with economic price adjustments. Future costs of supplies and equipment that the seller might be required to provide under contract might not be predictable.

Time And Material (T&M) Or Unit Price

In this type of contracts, the buyer pays on a per-hour basis or per-item basis. Time and material contracts are frequently used for service efforts in which the level of effort cannot be determined when the contract is awarded.

Procurement Documents (BID Documents)

Once the contract type is selected and the procurement statement of work has been created, the buyer can put together the procurement document, which describes the buyers needs to the sellers. The different types of procurement documents include:

Request for proposal (RFP);

RFPs request a detailed proposal on how the work will be accomplished, who will do it, etc.

Invitation for Bid (IFB);

IFB usually just requests the total price to do all work.

Request for Quotation (RFQ);

RFQs request a price quote per item, hour, meter, or other unit of measure.

The objective is to provide the seller a clear picture as much as possible. The procurement documents should include:

• Information for sellers

• Background information about the purpose of the buyer wanting to get the work done

• Procedure for trying to win the work

• Guidelines for preparing the response

• The formats for responses

• Source selection criteria the criteria the buyer will use to evaluate responses from the sellers

• Pricing forms

• Procurement statement of work

• Proposed terms and conditions of the contract (legal and business)

Source Selection Criteria

Source selection criteria are included in the procurement documents to give the seller an understanding of the buyers needs and to help the seller decide whether to bid or make a proposal on the work. Source selection criteria become a basis for the buyer to use in evaluating bids or proposals.

The source selection criteria include:

• Number of years in business

• Financial stability

• Understanding the need

• Price or life cycle cost

• Technical ability

• Quality of past performance

• Ability to complete the work on-time

• Project management ability

The following are additional terms, the project manager must be familiar with:

Nondisclosure Agreement:

This is an agreement between the buyer and prospective sellers identifying the information or documents they will hold confidential and control, and who in the organization will gain access to the confidential information.

Teaming Agreement (Joint Venture):

Often two sellers believe that their chance of winning work from a buyer will be enhanced if they join forces for one procurement. In this case, they will sign a teaming agreement with each other to address the legal and business aspects of the arrangement.

Standard Contract:

The contract terms and conditions are most commonly created by the buyer, who may even put their terms and conditions into the standard format that is used over and over for similar procurements. These types of standard contracts need no further legal review if used as they are.

Special Provisions (Special Conditions):

The project manager must be able to read and understand standard terms and conditions and to determine what needs to be added, changed, or removed from the standard provisions. By doing so, the project manager can make sure the resulting contract addresses the particular needs of the customer.