Date of Award

9-1994

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Robert Pappas, PhD

Second Advisor

Carl R. Templin, PhD

Abstract

Source Selection is the process used by the Federal government to select contractors for large, complex and important requirements. Recent studies have indicated that the in experience of source selection personnel continues to be a significant problem in source selections. Air Force Federal Acquisition Regulation Appendix AA requires that lessons learned be compiled at the conclusion of every source selection. Unfortunately, there has been little success in organizing this information into a coherent training guide. This research attempts to fill this gap by using source selection experts to identify source selection pitfalls, their consequences, and the best practices to avoid them. Fifteen situations that could be detrimental to a source selection were identified through a literature review. Next, source selection experts were surveyed to see if they could agree on the nature and affect these situations had on source selections. The experts evaluated each situation in terms of its negative impact on an acquisition program and its frequency of occurrence. The experts were surveyed using the Delphi method, characterized by iterative survey rounds and feedback from previous rounds. The two factors of impact and frequency, as well as expert comments, were used to identify which situations were pitfalls. Twelve of the fifteen situations tested were found to be source selection pitfalls. The experts also provided the possible consequences of and best practices to avoid each pitfall.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCM-LAS-94S-7

DTIC Accession Number

ADA285402

Comments

The author's Vita page is omitted.

Presented to the Faculty of the School of Logistics and Acquisition Management of the Air Force Institute of Technology.

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