About 68 percent of NAVSEA’s SeaPort-e MACs have been awarded to small firms, expanding opportunities for small business beyond previous approaches. For the Marines, that was considered a major positive over the mostly large business BPAs, leading to increased competition, increased small business participation, and lower procurement costs.
By providing a secure Web-based procurement portal, SeaPort-e reduces processing time while allowing users to take advantage of several acquisition reform initiatives, including award term contracting, reverse auctioning, and electronic signatures. At the same time, program managers are able to select the best solutions to meet their requirements. All use an intuitive, Amazon.com-type environment that requires minimal training.
“The private SeaPort e-marketplace provides end-to-end government-to-contractor support for the acquisition of services from the definition of requirements to contract close-out in a completely paperless and secure environment,” according to NAVSEA’S SeaPort website. “Modifications to task orders are generated in SeaPort by re-using the data captured from the current version of task orders, improving both the processing time and accuracy of modifications.
“Finally, solicitations, task orders and other contract documents are captured in an electronic resource library to provide models for future procurements. This move from segregated ‘paper’ processes to fully integrated ‘electronic’ processes dramatically reduces the time and cost associated with the acquisition of support services.” Service acquisitions, which used to take months, now take much less time.
Derrick Slaughter, a U.S. government contractor, teaches techniques and procedures to counter roadside bombs to U.S. Marines and sailors of Weapons Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, as part of sustainment training ashore, June 22, 2012. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Michael Petersheim
While other parts of the Marine Corps soon followed the Navy lead, MCSC did not begin taking a serious look at it until about two years ago. Apperson and her team began to take training and learn how SeaPort-e functioned. She also spoke with those using it to make certain that they had had a good experience.
“I realized it was a better tool that would lead us to a lot more competition and opportunities for small business, because our CEOss business model was predominantly large businesses. In addition, most of the BPAs under our old business model were expiring and would have required a tremendous amount of work to replace,” she recalled. “So I believed it was time to move to the new tool, that CEOss had outlived its positive attributes.
“There are some additional flexibilities in SeaPort-e that will be positive to the Corps, along with different contract types that were not available under GSA. We were very limited on direct costs under GSA and I think we can now buy more materials for the service. SeaPort-e is a tool for procuring services, but it also has a better ability to procure materials than did CEOss under GSA. So it is a better tool for what we need to support the warfighter and contracting officer reps.”
Although MCSC’s move toward SeaPort-e coincided with the start of increasingly tight budgets and a drawdown in the size of the Corps and resources that it will maintain, Apperson said those played little, if any, role in the decision.
“We should always be looking to do things smarter and better, irrespective of budget cuts. So this change was not looking at downsizing or budgets, but at using the best vehicle to support the warfighter,” she said.
Apperson acknowledges the Corps will save time and manpower by leveraging existing Navy procedures.