Contracting Officers' Workload
Background
The U.S. Postal Service’s Supply Management group is composed of five purchasing portfolios: Commercial Products & Services, Facilities, Mail & Operational Equipment, Technology Infrastructure, and Transportation. Within each portfolio, category management centers focus on purchasing specific types of goods and services that address the operating needs of the Postal Service.
Supply Management has 145 contracting officers (CO) with authority to make purchases at various dollar thresholds. Most COs oversee contracts in the Contract Authoring and Management System (CAMS); however, COs who work for the Facilities and Transportation portfolios use other systems to manage contracts. As of January 20, 2016, CAMS reported 13,934 contracting actions valued at about $33.5 billion.
The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) developed predictive analytics to identify contract risks. As part of this effort, we established indicators — or tripwires —to identify potential problem areas, such as COs who managed a high volume of contracts during fiscal year 2015.
Our objectives were to assess the Postal Service’s oversight of COs’ workloads and determine whether it is consistent with other federal agencies.
What The OIG Found
Supply Management’s method of distributing workload is consistent with other federal agencies; however, opportunities exist for the Postal Service to improve visibility and tracking of COs’ workloads and resources across the five Supply Management portfolios simultaneously.
We surveyed 126 COs actively managing contracts to determine the ratio of contracts assigned to the COs and assessed their ability to manage their workloads. We received responses from 93 COs (74 percent) and found that, while the number of contracts per CO was not always the same, this was not the sole indicator of whether management effectively distributed the workload.
Supply Management also considered factors such as the type and complexity of the contract, the CO’s level of experience, and whether a contracting officer representative was assigned to assist with contract administration. Further, Supply Management uses purchasing specialists to support its COs.
Managers tracked the contracts assigned to individual COs; however, Supply Management did not have a standardized report or dashboard tool to effectively plan resources. Managers used workload reports, scorecards, requisition logs, Excel spreadsheets, and other solutions to monitor and manage workload distribution and resources. These tools require managers to pull data from various sources, which is time-consuming and may result in delayed or inaccurate information.
We benchmarked against four federal government agencies to determine how they track and manage COs’ workloads. We found they generally use tools similar to the Postal Service’s; however, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs uses a contract management system that provides a snapshot of COs’ workloads across the enterprise. The Postal Service should assess whether the capabilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs system could benefit the Postal Service.
We also identified 1,890 contracts in CAMS assigned to former Supply Management COs. Although Supply Management has a contract file transfer process, it was not followed. Managers stated these contract modifications are time-consuming and low priority because outdated CO assignment information is low risk.
Contracting policy requires COs to manage contracts and ensure that any changes are fully documented in the contract file. Further, COs are responsible for overseeing and engaging the supplier community to build and maintain mutually beneficial business relationships. It is important that the Postal Service timely notify suppliers when a new CO is assigned to their contract since miscommunication could lead to inefficiencies and negatively impact the Postal Service’s brand.
As a result of this audit, the Postal Service began corrective actions to update some contract files with current CO information. As of January 20, 2016, only six of the 1,890 contract files remained to be updated.
What The OIG Recommended
We recommended management assess the capabilities of internal and external contract management systems to determine whether more efficient processes or reports can be developed to monitor workload. We also recommended management update CAMS with current CO information for the six remaining contracts. Finally, we recommended management develop an oversight process to verify that suppliers are notified of contract changes in a timely manner and contract files in CAMS are updated.