Improving the Contractor Responsibility Determination Process

Abstract

Stemming from the President’s Management Agenda, the Office of Management and Budget has set goals per functional area to guide the federal government’s modernization. The goal for acquisitions is to be frictionless, or to be able to deliver commercial items at the same speed as the market and non-commercial items by using modern business practices and technologies. The contractor responsibility determination process is an acquisition process that occurs at least once for every contract and, if modernized, would affect the speed at which every contract is awarded. Initial research reveals that the execution of this process is not standardized throughout and within the different federal agencies, lacks compliance, and does not meet the intent of the policy stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 9.1. Using a business process improvement method, the contractor responsibility determination process is dissected to reveal issues. Potential solutions are then discussed to solve these issues. One of these solutions is then prototyped and field-tested. The thesis ends with a discussion of alternative processes and recommendations on those processes that could follow the same analysis and prototype development pattern.