CAF Procurement

[Navy_Pete]

We haven't embraced that at least. We use the HPR App that DNav Log developed.

In my experience the whole HPR/OPDEF side of things is pretty broken, and there is a severe lack of comms on the tech side to LCMMs. It's not unsual to get HPRs and that's the only indication you get there is an issue, and a lot of times it's actually for the wrong part. There are a huge amount of HPRs that are avoidable if there was actual comms, and usually come in too late to actually buy things in time to fix it, so creates a lot of TRANREQs.

The paperwork is just as bad on HPRs and other larger procurements; there are a lot of manual forms that need filled to even initiate a procurement for spare parts, and with all the supply system changes that broke the TDP usually now involves recreating the tech data from scratch, and some DRMIS workarounds for actually getting it on the shelf once received.

 

[Halifax Tar]

In my experience the whole HPR/OPDEF side of things is pretty broken, and there is a severe lack of comms on the tech side to LCMMs. It's not unsual to get HPRs and that's the only indication you get there is an issue, and a lot of times it's actually for the wrong part. There are a huge amount of HPRs that are avoidable if there was actual comms, and usually come in too late to actually buy things in time to fix it, so creates a lot of TRANREQs.

The paperwork is just as bad on HPRs and other larger procurements; there are a lot of manual forms that need filled to even initiate a procurement for spare parts, and with all the supply system changes that broke the TDP usually now involves recreating the tech data from scratch, and some DRMIS workarounds for actually getting it on the shelf once received.

Not wishing to derail the purchasing thread, but I do agree the HPR process is broken. And I think it has much to do with an earned distrust in the CFSS to fill demands as it does just pure incompetence and lack of knowledge.

But you're also talking to a guy that thinks the engineering side of the house has too many fingers in material management and it's causing issues.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Not wishing to derail the purchasing thread, but I do agree the HPR process is broken. And I think it has much to do with an earned distrust in the CFSS to fill demands as it does just pure incompetence and lack of knowledge.

But you're also talking to a guy that thinks the engineering side of the house has too many fingers in material management and it's causing issues.

Some of the current changes now have the SM reviewing core TA functions, and there is a lot of stuff the TAs have to do that should be core SM functions. Ideally the TA should just have to say 'I need xx widgets that meet spec y, and keep zz on the shelves as a min' and it would happen.

Either way, far too much LOE to buy anything, with way too much internal and external steps needed. There is a lot of things on the coasts (like consumables) that should be either SA call ups, or credit card buys, and if a unit runs out of money because they bought 3 ply TP or something that cost $1/unit that's a 'them' problem.

Doing projects on my own time is such an awesome feeling when I can just buy something without having to jump through all the hoops, do paperwork on GBA+ and Indiegnous procurements and not have minimum posting times, sign offs from 8 layers and all the other things we have to do.

Every time someone does a 'streamlining' we just add on more, but can't see us just burning the system to the ground and going back to doing just the minimum needed to meet CITT (and waiving it when that's an option). May end up with some bad buys, and wastage, but there is huge oversight costs now, plus costs to delays (like TRANREQs or operating with worn stuff that then breaks completely), that I think it would be cheaper generally even if there was some fraud.

On the strategic level, DPS has to be one of the worst examples of this; instead of just knocking heads together and creating a single belly button to push on procurements, now there are multi level approvals that need collective approvals from multiple departments, with a lot of people with levers to pull to say no (with no responsibility on the solution), but only one real path to a yes.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Some of the current changes now have the SM reviewing core TA functions, and there is a lot of stuff the TAs have to do that should be core SM functions. Ideally the TA should just have to say 'I need xx widgets that meet spec y, and keep zz on the shelves as a min' and it would happen.

Agreed.

Either way, far too much LOE to buy anything, with way too much internal and external steps needed. There is a lot of things on the coasts (like consumables) that should be either SA call ups, or credit card buys, and if a unit runs out of money because they bought 3 ply TP or something that cost $1/unit that's a 'them' problem.

But it's not the CAF that says we can't LPO spare parts, it's the Treasury Board through the PAM.

And I don't believe units should be buying their own sustainment, that is the job of the support echelons.

Doing projects on my own time is such an awesome feeling when I can just buy something without having to jump through all the hoops, do paperwork on GBA+ and Indiegnous procurements and not have minimum posting times, sign offs from 8 layers and all the other things we have to do.

If I imposed our procurement practices on myself it would take me three years to put my wife's new license plate on her car.

Every time someone does a 'streamlining' we just add on more, but can't see us just burning the system to the ground and going back to doing just the minimum needed to meet CITT (and waiving it when that's an option). May end up with some bad buys, and wastage, but there is huge oversight costs now, plus costs to delays (like TRANREQs or operating with worn stuff that then breaks completely), that I think it would be cheaper generally even if there was some fraud.

I'm convinced the issue is the people that are making decisions or streamlining have no real, or extremely dated, experience where their impacts are felt.

On the strategic level, DPS has to be one of the worst examples of this; instead of just knocking heads together and creating a single belly button to push on procurements, now there are multi level approvals that need collective approvals from multiple departments, with a lot of people with levers to pull to say no (with no responsibility on the solution), but only one real path to a yes.

I simply want an easy and efficient process to get the materials that are needed to support my sailors.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

To buy paper towel for the ship, I need a 2227 with 3 quotes, an SRCL (Security Requirements Check List) and an Accessibility Attestation. If I want to skip the 3 quotes I need a sole source justification form.

To buy fucking paper towel I need 3 maybe 4, separate forms. 3 of them make absolutely no sense.

And then it takes BLog 6 months to get us the paper towel.

I have met thine enemy and its name is bureaucracy.

Can you use the Forms as paper towel?

 

[MJP]

But it's not the CAF that says we can't LPO spare parts, it's the Treasury Board through the PAM.

What TB policy? Lots of spare parts are LPO, the CA fleets depend on LPO even for hard green fleet so not understanding your comment, can you point to a specific policy that prohibits LPO? Designating spares as a CFSS commodity to hold (depot held) or from the economy via IM advisory code is a TA responsibility and they are usually pretty good at saying "hey you can get this part from economy".

 

[Halifax Tar]

What TB policy? Lots of spare parts are LPO, the CA fleets depend on LPO even for hard green fleet so not understanding your comment, can you point to a specific policy that prohibits LPO? Designating spares as a CFSS commodity to hold (depot held) or from the economy via IM advisory code is a TA responsibility and they are usually pretty good at saying "hey you can get this part from economy".

Sorry I should have been more specific. Unit acquisition cards. Spare parts is listed one of the prohibited items to buy with a unit acquisition card. Like weapons, ammo, ect ect. My apologies.

This is an issue for CM/CP items in the RCN as we have no spares and the LCMM/SM can't seem to buy them. So they try to pawn that off on the units. Even trying to get a SAF from them for those buys is like pulling teeth.

We had to do some creative problem solving this last deployment which involved flying someone across Europe to buy, pick up and hand carry some parts because the LCMM couldn't pull the trigger.

It's a rule we break all the time, luckily we've never had an issue where we bought an defective part that crippled a piece of machinery, yet.

 

[Alberta Bound]

I agree with the “they just don’t understand the issues and impacts” philosophy. While in charge of a small Det (8 members 5 trucks) in northern Alberta I had to renew our fuel contract (no gas station in the community, we had our own tank).
I did the documents for bids and wanted to select the incumbent who was 65 kms away and would charge no cartage when fills were done by request with no mandated time line (their trucks drove by every day and would just top us up whenever we asked). But charged the industry standard if we demanded a fill within 24 hrs (which I only did 4 times in 27 months due to forest fires and floods).
But PW wanted to select a bidder 220 kms away who bid $0.005. litre less on the fuel but charged full cartage both ways for every fill from 220 kms away and only guaranteed 1 drop a week. They couldn’t see past the $0.005 a litre.
12 months later I transferred out after 2 arguments a month every month and my refusal to sign the contract they wanted. I kept using the incumbent as my interim supplier.

 

[OldSolduer]

I agree with the “they just don’t understand the issues and impacts” philosophy. While in charge of a small Det (8 members 5 trucks) in northern Alberta I had to renew our fuel contract (no gas station in the community, we had our own tank).
I did the documents for bids and wanted to select the incumbent who was 65 kms away and would charge no cartage when fills were done by request with no mandated time line (their trucks drove by every day and would just top us up whenever we asked). But charged the industry standard if we demanded a fill within 24 hrs (which I only did 4 times in 27 months due to forest fires and floods).
But PW wanted to select a bidder 220 kms away who bid $0.005. litre less on the fuel but charged full cartage both ways for every fill from 220 kms away and only guaranteed 1 drop a week. They couldn’t see past the $0.005 a litre.
12 months later I transferred out after 2 arguments a month every month and my refusal to sign the contract they wanted. I kept using the incumbent as my interim supplier.

Whover was in PW was a moron. Dumbass, or whatever term needs to be used.

I recall a Loggie MWO telling us "not necessarily the lowest bidder. Its the bidder who is in compliance and gives the best dollar value" or words to that effect.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Whover was in PW was a moron. Dumbass, or whatever term needs to be used.

I recall a Loggie MWO telling us "not necessarily the lowest bidder. Its the bidder who is in compliance and gives the best dollar value" or words to that effect.

We've been responding to RFPs for 30 years and have never seen that 'not necessarily the lowest cost bidder' thing play out, despite it being written on the RFP documents.

And we've seen the wreckage caused by some lowest cost bidders, and have been called in to help clean up after some of them too

 

[McG]

The RFP needs to define how it will measure “best value”. There are a lot of ways to do that, and a lot of ways to slide the fulcrum between the point of capability & capacity and the point of cost. Do that poorly and the contract award can easily slip to the overpriced solution or the lowest price solution without actually finding the best value in between.

 

[stoker dave]

On the other side of the procurement issue, I have previously been part of projects providing engineering and technical support to DND.

I don't do that anymore.

The procurement process is too slow and complicated. The projects are often poorly defined. Some DND folks are actively hostile towards contractors on their sites. I have ended up working with someone who has never dealt with a contractor and had no idea of their (and my) respective responsibilities in the project. Overall, not worth the effort. I am not sure that DND is always getting the best support for their money as lots of qualified and skilled people simply don't want to do defence work. (I do however have some very funny anecdotes that I will share some day...)

 

[CountDC]

Sorry but it is nice to see others understand lowest cost per item is not always the best and that they are just as frustrated with the system. Last case I had dealings with was we had a local supplier that cost a little more per item than a long distance dealer (Ontario to New Brunswick). Despite pointing out that the long distance dealer incurred a delivery fee that put the cost over the local and if there was anything wrong with the product a return fee and reship fee that the local didn't have I was shot down. They countered that it was a requirement to go with the lowest cost covering what was in the contract and the contract didn't mention delivery so we couldn't include the fees in the cost comparison. Basically every delivery had issues and had to be shipped back and forth so cost more.

 

[Navy_Pete]

What TB policy? Lots of spare parts are LPO, the CA fleets depend on LPO even for hard green fleet so not understanding your comment, can you point to a specific policy that prohibits LPO? Designating spares as a CFSS commodity to hold (depot held) or from the economy via IM advisory code is a TA responsibility and they are usually pretty good at saying "hey you can get this part from economy".

The delegation of authority is a big one, when the spare parts cost more than $25k so the base can't buy it. Lots of things we'd like to delegate for LPO until you look at the funding (and then capacity at the BLOG to do more LPOs where there is more LOE intensive processes as dollar values go up).

Maybe not on the army side, but basic spares for navy ships includes fun things like million dollar fire pumps, multimillion dollar engines, and really expensive gear boxes and propellors that you need to order years ahead of time. Even some filters are specialized, and have minimum batch orders so lots of relatively low dollar value things exceed that limit.

That's been up to TBS to justify an increase for years now, and apparently progress is being made, but still nothing on the horizon.

Those procurement limits were plucked out of someone's rectum in the 80s and never adjusted for inflation, but a $1k buy now is much less impressive than a $1k buy 20 years ago.

Hell, even LPOing unsexy things like initial provisioning for the new ships for kitchen utensils almost exceeded that, but that's why initial provisioning is supposed to be provided by capitol projects.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The RFP needs to define how it will measure “best value”. There are a lot of ways to do that, and a lot of ways to slide the fulcrum between the point of capability & capacity and the point of cost. Do that poorly and the contract award can easily slip to the overpriced solution or the lowest price solution without actually finding the best value in between.

I wish I could like this post more than once.

 

[MJP]

The delegation of authority is a big one, when the spare parts cost more than $25k so the base can't buy it. Lots of things we'd like to delegate for LPO until you look at the funding (and then capacity at the BLOG to do more LPOs where there is more LOE intensive processes as dollar values go up).

Maybe not on the army side, but basic spares for navy ships includes fun things like million dollar fire pumps, multimillion dollar engines, and really expensive gear boxes and propellors that you need to order years ahead of time. Even some filters are specialized, and have minimum batch orders so lots of relatively low dollar value things exceed that limit.

That's been up to TBS to justify an increase for years now, and apparently progress is being made, but still nothing on the horizon.

Those procurement limits were plucked out of someone's rectum in the 80s and never adjusted for inflation, but a $1k buy now is much less impressive than a $1k buy 20 years ago.

Hell, even LPOing unsexy things like initial provisioning for the new ships for kitchen utensils almost exceeded that, but that's why initial provisioning is supposed to be provided by capitol projects.

Yea definitely not taking about high dollar parts but I get that old big machines need big, hard to source expensive parts. Those should be centrally procured/managed. Even with increased delegation if it ever comes down the pipe those don't make sense except in extremis.

I was thinking more along the lines of simpler parts, generally usually blue and white fleet but sometimes green fleet parts are LPO. Lots of parts buying for CA vehicles via LPO. Really I just wanted to clarify what TB policy was stopping us from buying parts, as I have never encountered such a policy. We have lots of internal to CAF policy thats restricts us from LPOing things but those are us policies.

 

[OldSolduer]

We've been responding to RFPs for 30 years and have never seen that 'not necessarily the lowest cost bidder' thing play out, despite it being written on the RFP documents.

And we've seen the wreckage caused by some lowest cost bidders, and have been called in to help clean up after some of them too

This reminds me of the new PMQs in Cornwallis in 1983. The lowest bidder thought the base would supply the paint. The base didn’t. So the contractor diluted the paint and slapped it on.

Guess what? The whole lot had to be repainted as the inspector said WTF?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Yea definitely not taking about high dollar parts but I get that old big machines need big, hard to source expensive parts. Those should be centrally procured/managed. Even with increased delegation if it ever comes down the pipe those don't make sense except in extremis.

I was thinking more along the lines of simpler parts, generally usually blue and white fleet but sometimes green fleet parts are LPO. Lots of parts buying for CA vehicles via LPO. Really I just wanted to clarify what TB policy was stopping us from buying parts, as I have never encountered such a policy. We have lots of internal to CAF policy thats restricts us from LPOing things but those are us policies.

There is, or was, a policy in the FAM or PAM that dictated commodities that couldnt be purchased using a unit acquisition card.

The commodities included in things like clothing, weapons, ammo, IT equipment, vehicles and spare parts was on that list.

I'm in the middle of doing a crew swap, but I will try to dig up the ref.

 

[MJP]

There is, or was, a policy in the FAM or PAM that dictated commodities that couldnt be purchased using a unit acquisition card.

The commodities included in things like clothing, weapons, ammo, IT equipment, vehicles and spare parts was on that list.

I'm in the middle of doing a crew swap, but I will try to dig up the ref.

That is what I am referring to when I say us policies. The TB didn't restrict those, we did. Both of those policy documents are ours to manage. Military pattern spares is usually not allowed but those should be centrally bought and managed as they generally have rigorous specs attached to them, but for many fleets (green, blue or white) there are lots of LPO items that can (and are) bought via LPO.

 

[Halifax Tar]

That is what I am referring to when I say us policies. The TB didn't restrict those, we did. Both of those policy documents are ours to manage. Military pattern spares is usually not allowed but those should be centrally bought and managed as they generally have rigorous specs attached to them, but for many fleets (green, blue or white) there are lots of LPO items that can (and are) bought via LPO.

Ack, I may be incorrect. Reaching back to our contracting compliance folks to get my story straight.