- Agreements: Basic Agreements: A highly flexible framework agreement for recurring purchases. The government can easily add or remove vendors from the Agreement or cancel the agreement altogether
- Agreements: Basic Ordering agreements (BOA): Another highly flexible framework agreement, typically for a defined set of goods or services (e.g. the BOA might be for vehicle repairs, or for janitorial services). Frequently the price for various goods and services have not been set to allow for competitions among BOA holders and to allow more flexibility.
- Broad Agency announcements (BAA): An open call for Basic and Applied Research ideas (typically ideas related to a specific government R&D interest area). These vehicles tend to be new vendor friendly in terms of the proposal length and complexity and in terms of the regulations winners are subject to.
- Commercial Items: If the government is buying commercial products or services from anyone other than a large business (there is some nuance about who qualifies, but the answer is basically anyone other than the big primes) then they can use a “Commercial Items” contract which simplifies and expedites acquisitions processes
- Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO): The CSO is like the BAA, but the government can use CSOs to buy complete solutions and fund late stage R&D
- Cooperative Research and Development: An agreement between a Federal Lab and a group interested in conducting further R&D to bringing technology originally developed at a federal lab. As a rule the government does not provide money and instead provides the IP, lab space and other “in-kind resources.”
- Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ, AKA a GWAC): Multiple award: This the most common type of framework agreement. An IDIQ provides a well defined list of products and services that can be purchased under the IDIQ, the purchase terms, and generally significant vetting of people who want to compete for contracts released through an IDIQ.
- Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ): Single Award: This is just like the multiple award IDIQ, except only one company is on the IDIQ.
- Letter contracts: Letter contracts are used in contingencies (e.g. after a natural disaster) and allows the government to begin receiving goods and services from vendors while they are working on a longer term solution
- Negotiated contract: This is your classic government contract that you see on SAM.gov. All the terms are specific to that solicitation (e.g. a template agreement/indefinite contract is not used) and negotiated between the government and the vendors who propose
- Other Transactions: Prototype: These are very similar to a CSO in that they allow the government to buy commercial products, but the key differences are: 1) The intent is to test those commercial products to see if they meet the government’s needs 2) the government can use commercial contracting language and processes rather than base the contract in government language and processes
- Other Transactions: Research: Very similar to a BAA but the government can use more commercial terms in the contract
- Partnership Intermediary agreements (PIA): An agreement between government and a non-profit to act as an intermediary between government and industry/academia to identify and evaluate technology on the government’s behalf or to help commercialize federal lab owned technology.
- Procurement for experimentation: Allow the government to bypass typical acquisitions requirements and purchase enough of a product to test it (e.g. to see if the product could meet the government’s needs)
- SBIR/STTR: Small dollar R&D funding to small businesses
- Schedules: Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA): A template agreement made within Schedule holders that provides more definition and structure than
- Schedules: Task/Delivery Order:
- Simplified Acquisitions Process: Blanket Purchase Agreement (SAP BPA): A framework agreement to purchase commercial goods and services below the SAP threshold (typically $250K)
- Simplified Acquisitions Process: Micro-purchase: A very rapid purchase (often made with a government “credit card”) for small dollar value items
- Simplified Acquisitions Process: Purchase order: A one-off purchase of goods and services below the SAP threshold (currently $250K). This method has more regulation and oversight than a Micro-purchase, but much less than a negotiated contract.
- Small business: Set-aside:
- Small business: Sole Source:
- Technical Investment agreements (TIA): An agreement with a company who’s tech has defense applications that allows the government to fund R&D that could meet defense needs
