Government Procurement in The United States - Acquisition Process

Acquisition Process

Generally, federal acquisitions begin with identification of a requirement by a specific federal activity. A basic idea of what is needed and the problem statement is prepared and the requiring activity meets with an acquisition command having a Contracting Officer with an appropriate warrant issued by a specific acquisition activity.

Not all Contracting Officers are created equal. Contracting officers have different contracting thresholds and varying degrees of experience and capabilities. Each one has a specific warrant that states the conditions under which they are permitted to engage in federal contracting. Depending on the contracting activity, some contracting officers may have no experience whatever with the product, service or requirements in question or knowledge of any of the potential vendor base, representing a weakness on the part of the Government procurement process.

Read more about this topic:  Government Procurement In The United States

Famous quotes containing the words acquisition and/or process:

    Whatever may be our just grievances in the southern states, it is fitting that we acknowledge that, considering their poverty and past relationship to the Negro race, they have done remarkably well for the cause of education among us. That the whole South should commit itself to the principle that the colored people have a right to be educated is an immense acquisition to the cause of popular education.
    Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)

    The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Marx exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx at the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him, will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we cannot foresee.
    George Orwell (1903–1950)