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:
“Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
“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)