Wednesday, April 3, 2013

RISK ALLOCATION AND MOTIVATION FUNCTIONS OF CONTRACTS IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION PROGRAMS

PAPER presented to 1st International Logistics Congress by Bahçeşehir University and Robert Morris University in 2003 in Istanbul


RISK ALLOCATION AND MOTIVATION FUNCTIONS OF CONTRACTS IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION PROGRAMS

 

            The risk allocation and motivation are two primary functions of contracts as well as the evidentiary, administrative and payment functions.  In today’s world, managing the acquisition programs is getting harder as products and systems get more complex along with the rapid technological developments.  Therefore, the acquisition programs involve more risk than ever and the contractor motivation is the fundamental strategy to achieve the goals of a successful acquisition program.

            The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is the principle document for the contract management in the U.S. Government.  FAR enables the contracting officers (KO) and the agencies to select among different contract types to allocate the risk efficiently between the Government and the contractor.  FAR also increases the performance of the contractors with different incentives provided by the contract type.  Thus, risk allocation and performance enhancement are strictly related to the contract types. 

            Acquisition programs always involve risk.  Cost, schedule and performance risks are the main concern of the contracting officers in the Government programs.  All these risks may be allocated between the Government and the contractor with an appropriate contract type.  Furthermore, the existing risks must be shouldered by the two parties, either solely by the Government or solely by the contractor or must be shared by both.

The motivation function is the fundamental part of the contractor performance and linked with the risk allocation.  Since all contracts include a payment function and the primary goal of each contractor is making profit, the motivation function will be performed by creating monetary incentives for the contractors.  Therefore, the motivation function enables establishing a contract structure for mutual satisfaction of the Government and the contractors.

            Two basic contract types are the “fixed price” and “cost” type contracts in the U.S. Government. Generally, the fixed price contracts can be enhanced with the price adjustments and the incentive fee.  On the other hand, the cost type contracts can be enhanced with various types of fees.  Fixed fee, award fee and incentive fee are the available fee types.

            Since the contractor accepts to complete the job at a fixed price, fixed price contracts mainly transfer all the risk to contractor.   The fixed price contract types are beneficial when the performance risk is low.  Mature technology acquisitions and commercial of the shelf (COTS) item procurements are good examples where fixed price contract types can be utilized.  The contractor is incentivized to reduce the cost since the cost savings will increase the profit margin for the contractor and the cost overruns will reduce the profit or even may create losses.

The cost type contracts hold the risk mainly on the Government.  The Government accepts to pay all the costs incurred by the contractor to accomplish the job successfully.  The major risk that challenges the Government is the contractor’s failure to complete or deliver the product.  The cost type contracts are usually preferred when the performance risk is high.  Cutting edge technology acquisitions, unproven processes or innovative material procurements are examples of the situations where the cost contracts may be utilized.  Unlike fixed price, the cost savings will basically return to the Government or cost overruns increase the Government expenses on the contract.

            “One size fits all” strategy does not work well for the contract management.  Therefore, selecting the appropriate contract type is a crucial task for risk allocation and contractor motivation.  The objectives of the contract type selection process must be reducing the risk to a reasonable level for both parties and creating incentives to increase the performance of the contractors.

The acquisition method is one of the major considerations for selecting the contract type.  Because some of the acquisition methods limit the type of contracts applicable to a particular acquisition.  For example, fixed price is the only contract type that can be used when the Simplified Acquisition Procedures (SAP) is the acquisition method.  Another acquisition method is Sealed Bidding that restricts the selection of contract types to Firm Fixed Price (FFP) and Fixed Price with Economic Price Adjustment (FPEPA).  The Negotiations is the other acquisition method, however, any type of contracts specified in the FAR can be used with this method.  

            Fixed fee is the most basic type of contract fee that is used to increase the contractor performance.  This can only be used with cost contracts and forms the Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract type.  In addition to cost reimbursed by the Government, the CPFF guarantees a profit for the contractor equal to the fixed fee determined in the contract initiation.

            The cost contract type including an award fee is called the Cost Plus Award Fee (CPAF) contract.  In the CPAF contracts, the acquisition program is divided into periods and an award fee pool is assigned to each period.  The award fee pool consists of a certain amount of fee, which will be available for the contractor.  First, an Award Fee Plan is established to formulize the award fee payment.  The Award Fee Plan states the criteria that must be met by the contractor to be eligible for getting certain percentages of the award fee available at each period.  A designated Award Fee Board will evaluate the contractor and determine the percentage of award fee to be released to the contractor.  Furthermore, the remaining portion of the fee pool not awarded during a period can be added to the following periods to increase the incentive for the contractor.

            Incentive fees can be used both with fixed price and cost type contracts: Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF) and Fixed Price Incentive (FPIF) contracts.  The incentive fee is used to incentivize the contractor to improve the cost, schedule and performance elements.  Cost based incentive fee is stated as a share ratio in percentages between the Government and the contractor for cost savings.  Each party will get its designated percentage of the cost savings occurred.  Changing the share ratio will affect the incentives for the contractor.  Thus, determining the optimum percentages between the two parties is a critical task.

            The criteria for schedule based incentive fee is the early delivery of acceptable product or early accomplishment of any major milestone.  Performance based incentive fee must also be based on measurable criteria such as exceeding the required limits stated in the contract specifications.  The amount of incentive fee awarded to the contractor is determined through a calculation.  The criteria for calculation is explained and formulized in the contract initiation.  The fee is usually not a constant amount but increases as the contract element improvements increase.  However, the maximum limit must always be specified and the minimum limit may also be specified.  An important point here is that the contractor must meet all the contract element requirements to qualify for the incentive fee.

            As stated before, fixed price contracts can also be enhanced with various methods: Firm Fixed Price-Level of Effort (FFPLOE) is an enhanced method, which allows flexibility in amount of work assigned to the contractor.  Fixed Price with Economic Price Adjustments (FPEPA) is another type that allows changing the price based on the pre-specified economic indexes.  Other enhancements may be listed as Fixed Price with Price Re-determination (FPR) and Fixed Price with Incentive Successive Targets (FPIS), which is a hybrid of FPIF.

            Finally, the U.S. contracting and acquisition regulations provide flexibility to the Government agencies.  The risk allocation and contractor motivation options are available to contract managers as a powerful tool. Consequently, the contract types are selected based on the relative risk of successful performance.  The fees and some other adjustments can be used to enhance the contracts and incentivize contractors.

Ugur Erdemir
Logistics and Acquisition Professional, Industrial Engineer
ugurerdemir1975@hotmail.com
 
See also:
Warehouse Site Selection Models
http://warehousesiteselection.blogspot.com/

Excess Inventory and Disposal
http://excessinventoryanddisposal.blogspot.com/




Reference: U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)