Contract Closeout (A)
Abstract
It was the 10th of January 2004 and Jim Ross was contemplating how he was going to resolve a very tough issue. He had been working this problem for some time now but it just wasn't improving. Jim is an Administrative Contracting Officer (ACO) in the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) located in Sunnyvale, California. His problem is a growing backlog of contracts for which contractors had finished performance and were ready to be closed. The closeout process officially starts when a contract has been physically completed (i.e., all goods or supplies have been delivered and accepted or all services have been performed). There are timeframes within which the Federal Government requires such contracts to be closed which vary with contract type. Once a contract migrates to the closeout backlog, it generally does not receive the same attention as active contracts. It moves to a holding status pending completion of several actions. As of 1 January 2004, DCMA Sunnyvale had 156 contracts that had been completed by the contractors involved and were awaiting closeout action. Of this number, 42 had moved to the "overage" category, which meant they had exceeded the timeframes established in the FAR during which closeout action was to be accomplished. This case study of Department of Defense contract closeout contains case questions/exercises and the following exhibits: contract closeout timeframes, contracts awaiting closeout action, reason codes, nature of work codes, type of contract codes, buying office letter, DCMA policy statement concerning contract closeout, closeout metrics, industry closeout practices, industry comments regarding DoD closeout process, contractor letter of complaint, relevant studies, stakeholder analysis, potential solutions to contract closeout issues, and strategic planning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA498725
Entities
People
- David V. Lamm
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School