The
Aurora Veterans Affairs Hospital Replacement Alpha Contract Team was named the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2015 Procurement Team of the Year in the Excellence
in Contracting Awards Program.
Each
year USACE recognizes the achievements and contributions of its contracting
workforce for their continuing and exceptional commitment and service. The awards
program highlights its very best contracting professionals and honors their
superior performance and fine accomplishments.
Col.
John W. Henderson, Omaha District commander, in an email recognized there were
dozens of people who supported the efforts of this team. The nucleus of the team included employees
from USACE’s Omaha District and the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center,
Huntsville.
Robert
Michaels, Doug Hadley, Pete Sturdivant, Glenn Marks, Dick Taylor, Stan Tracey, Sam
McGuffey, Jay Ling, and Eric Vokt from Omaha District received support from
Huntsville Center’s Boyce Ross, Arkie Fanning, Pat Haas and April Rafael-Adams.
“The
brilliant efforts of this team to work through extreme complexity to negotiate
a new $571 million fixed price incentive firm completion contract for the remaining
work on the Aurora (Colorado) Veterans Affairs Medical Center are truly
laudatory and certainly saved our nation tens of millions of dollars in the
process,” Henderson said. “Kudos to you
all for this very well-deserved recognition.”
The
team worked together to find a solution for completing a Veterans Affairs
Medical Complex construction project in Aurora, Colorado. It was decided that
USACE would procure a sole source acquisition with Kiewit – Turner, a Joint
Venture to finish the last half of the project.
According
to the nomination application, USACE implemented a non-traditional approach to
the acquisition process called “Alpha Contracting.” Alpha Contracting is an acquisition process
used to reduce the cycle time by the government and the contractor
collaborating on qualifying technical requirements and reaching agreement on
risk assessment. The contractor then submits its pricing and the Joint Alpha
Acquisition Team, including government and contractor personnel, discuss the
pricing in order to reach a fair and reasonable price.
“In
less than a year, the Alpha Contracting Team entered final negotiations at the
year end with contract award ready for the first week in October 2015,” said
John Jacobson, Omaha District chief of contracting. “This was an incredible
feat given that during that time the team had to conduct extensive market
research, develop an Acquisition Strategy, create and get approval for a justification
and approval document to conduct a sole source acquisition, develop and get an
approved independent government estimate, develop an in-depth statement of
work, develop a complete Request for Proposal, develop a detailed
pre-negotiation memorandum, conduct extensive negotiations, develop detailed
charts and charts explaining a Fixed Price Incentive (Firm Target) contract and
obtain approvals on many of the documents all the way up to Mr. Shay Assad, director
of Defense Pricing for the Department of Defense.”
Jacobson
said the team broke new ground on multiple fronts; from bringing key players
from various locations throughout USACE together in one location to develop and
complete vital acquisition documents (such as the Acquisition Strategy in
record time), to the proposed utilization of a Fixed Price Incentive (Firm
Target) contract for a half completed construction project. The collaboration and coordination up and
down the leadership chain was noteworthy and was directly responsible for the
effective streamlining of the acquisition process.
Ross,
Huntsville Center’s director of engineering, explained that when Omaha District
was tasked with taking over and completing this project, they
looked to Huntsville Center’s Medical Mandatory Center of Expertise and
Standardization for assistance validating the design and status of
construction.
“The
Center reviewed the design and construction documents and spent several weeks
in Aurora accessing the quality and status of construction,” Ross said. “We brought our major construction expertise
forward through our chemical demilitarization and medical MILCON experiences,
and our technical expertise from medical experts throughout the Center.
“What
no one expected was how daunting a task it would be to put a new contract in
place to complete a 1.2 million square foot medical complex that was 50 percent
complete,” Ross said. “Omaha needed help
from all of USACE figuring out how to put a cost estimate to complete the
project together, as well as new a new construction contract in place in less
than six months.”
Ross
said Huntsville Center had developed many programmatic type
estimates-to-complete for chemical demilitarization projects over the years that
was used to estimate complex facilities like medical, missile and
demilitarization projects.
“We
borrowed contract capacity from the Walla Walla District Civil Works Cost Center
of Expertise and utilized a firm out of Atlanta that our cost engineers had worked
with in the past (Project Time and Cost).
The estimating team from the Center, augmented by as many as 15 PT&C
estimators, developed a detailed estimate of the work left to do on each
building in the Aurora complex over a 60-day time period. Ultimately the Fixed Price Incentive (Firm
Target) was established very near the government's estimate, the first time
that has occurred in my career!
“It
was great to see Omaha reach out to so many people in USACE. Savannah District,
Fort Worth District, Huntsville Center, Walla Walla Headquarters, USACE all contributed
to this contract getting awarded,” Ross said.
“There were several instances where Mr. Lloyd Caldwell, director of Military Programs, and Mr. Stuart Hazlett,
director
of Contracting,
took direct control of the negotiations with K-T, ultimately handing it over to
Omaha's team to finalize and award. It was a great USACE team effort.”