Late last week a Federal Register notice released June 8, showed that the Office of Federal Procurement Policy has proposed several revisions to its value engineering model, a World War II-era approach to saving money when resources are tight. This can be a good, or a bad thing. The idea of VE is to make agencies and contractors work under the lowest life-cycle cost. Yes, agencies are using VE now, so the big question is, will updating Circular A-131 to reflect present-day buying strategies and practices, be harder on the agencies or the federal contractor?

Federal Computer week listed the major points that the OFPP wants changed or updated:

• Reinforce the need to use value engineering to save money and improve performance. The technique weeds out the nonessential processes from management work, as well as contracts for supplies and services and construction projects.
• Explain that agencies can use value engineering with various contract types and methods of contracting. Officials can incorporate it into acquisition strategies.
• Make clear that agencies can use value engineering with other management tools.
• Increase the threshold to use the technique. The proposal would raise the minimum threshold for agency projects that require value engineering from $1 million to $2 million, primarily to take into account inflation through the years.
• Reduce reporting requirements. Under the proposal, OFPP would only require agencies to report on five projects annually, instead of 20 projects as the circular currently calls for. The changes would also update the reporting format to include how officials arrived at the calculated savings.
• Remove outdated terminology and update references.
• End automatic reviews by inspectors general, although OFPP wants agency officials to still work with their IGs to consider when reviews may be necessary.
• Strengthen employee training.