As a contracts officer for the Department of Energy (DOE), the task assigned entails reviewing bids from contractors who have developed a new widget for saving the American public twenty-five percent (25%) on their energy bills. Once an award is made, the contractors will receive the contract, which includes provisions to minimize risks and define rights and obligations, from the Department of Energy.
A major part of the process of reviewing contracts is looking into the importance of the standard default clause. Notably, the standard default clause makes provisions for actions that should be taken in case of a default by either parties. The various default events need to be established between the contracting parties in clear terms and be acknowledged in the security agreement. Default events encompass a wide range of areas including defaults in line with payment, defaults related to performance, defaults in proper maintenance, abandoning the speculated work, defaults in enforcing the intellectual property rights or infringement on the same. In other words, the defaults can manifests through failure on the part of the supplier in delivering services or products within the specified frame of time.
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Moreover, defaults include any acts of commission or omission that may threaten the progress of the contract. These and other events of default allow for the termination of a contract by the federal government as defaulting is an act of breaching the contract. However, if the federal government decides to end the contract, due communication has to be made to the contractor beforehand. As such, the government is required to make a written document informing the contractor of the dissatisfaction and hence allow the contractor to make amends within a duration of ten days ( Keyes, 2003) . Thus, the standard default clause serves to safeguard the terms of contracting for both parties.
As a contracts officer for the DOE, there are two ways in which I could combine the standard default clause with the FAR’s delay provision for the protection of both parties to the contract. Before going into details, it is worth noting that in most cases, delays are inevitable and will always happen in the process of implementing a contract. The standard default clause comes in handy to ensure that both parties are protected in the event of either expected or unprecedented delays. Therefore, the first way in which I could combine the standard default clause with the FAR’s delay provision could be in allowing for adjustments to be made regarding the dates for delivery as well as other conditions that could be unfavorably affected by the adjustments in the presentation dates ( Seddon, 2009) . The second way could involve making a written notification to the contractor regarding the agreed dates of payment. Such a notice could allow for the contractor to consider his/her position in protraction of the dates.
Notably, it would be necessary to speculate on the impact that could result upon both the government and the contractor if the contracting officer makes changes to the payment terms within the contract. On the one hand, supposing that the contracting officer incorporated all obligatory passages when lobbying for tenders, these obligations remain binding on both contracting parties ( Keyes, 2003) . After awarding the contract to one of the contractors, the government remains bound in the same measure as the contractor by the passages in their contract for the entire duration of implementing the contract. Thus, the contractor is bound to meet their dates of delivery while on the other hand, the government is obliged to make payments as stipulated in the contract. On the other hand, supposing that the contracting officer never included a clause to authorize revision in the contract, making any changes to payment terms could be a breach of contract.
With this problem, it is necessary to explore the most secure method for making a contractual change without contravening the contract. On this note, FAR makes provisions for contracting officers to slot in changes in open contracts under exceptional deliberations. As per the provisions, the changes to be made on the contract should be made after engaging in deliberations with the other party to ensure that the decision is bilaterally agreed upon. Thus, making deliberations before making changes offers the optimal way for effecting alterations in the contract. Nevertheless, the deliberations may not be needed if the changes in the contract affect only the party making the changes and not the other party. Mutual agreement may also not be necessitated if the alterations to the contract do not implicate cost decided upon initially or the expenditure of implementing the contract. In such a scenario, the contracting officer could make a written submission to the contractor highlighting that the alterations made in the contract have no effect on the cost of implementing the contract.
As a contracts officer for the DOE, I could suggest two improvements that I would make to the inspection procedure in order to make the procedure more efficient. To begin with, the “FAR 52.246-1 Contractor Inspection Requirements” specifies that the contractor is responsible for conducting all the inspections and the essential tests needed in confirming the adherence of the supplies to the terms of the contract. The inspection serves a pre-requisite role and is prioritized in meeting the contract requirements on inspection and testing alongside the specialized tests that are primarily conducted by the government. Moreover, the “Contractor Inspection Requirements” necessitates that the contracting officer slots in an inspection requirements clause following the lobbying of contract services with the estimated amount proving to be in line with the agreed threshold or less. This incorporation of inspection requirements is indispensable as it serves a crucial role of ensuring that the parties arrive at a clear understanding of the inspection roles implicating the contractor and the stipulated procedures by the government in fulfilling the mandate.
Another important part of the “Inspection Requirements “is the inspection of supplies. The requirements apply in ensuring that the supplies conform to the requirements and are not defective from the material perspective as well as from the workmanship. In line with these requirements, I could make some improvements on the appropriate practices needed in successfully completing the inspection procedure with the aim of making the procedure more efficient. Particularly, I could reduce the variables needed in assessing the supplies to make it less time consuming and hence avoid unnecessary delays. Moreover, using less variables makes it easier for monitoring and evaluation on both contracting parties ( Nash et al., 1998 ).
The second improvement that I could make is towards making the process of inspection more expeditious. This will be achieved through setting an elimination criteria for proposals. The rationale for this improvement is that the process of reviewing proposals consumes much time and resources ( Nash et al., 1998 ). Moreover, the indicated ways of offering the solicited service should be the guiding factor rather than relying on the various companies’ frameworks of operation. With specified procedures, the process of contracting could be significantly shortened.
References
Federal acquisition Regulation (FAR). “52.246-1 Contractor Inspection Requirements” . Retrieved on June 10, 2017 https://www.acquisition.gov/sites/default/files/current/far/html/52_246.html
Keyes, W. N. (2003). Government Contracts under the Federal Acquisition Regulation . West Group Publishing.
Nash, R. C., Schooner, S. L., & O'Brien, K. R. (1998). The government contracts reference book. George Washington Univ Government.
Seddon, N. (2009). Government Contracts: Federal, State and Local . Federation Press.
