The COE & Battlespace Laboratory Case Study

The COE & Battlespace Laboratory Case Study

Date of Work: 2008 – 2010

Battleship Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico

USAF Project; Procurement Agency: Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque District

Lessons Learned

  1. Conclusions of Albuquerque COE District Legal counsel Richard Toten: “He and the team saw the implementation of [best value PIPS] concepts as a paradigm shift and not as a legal issue.”
  2. The PIPS process as used by the Alburquerque District is not a pure PIPS process, but adjusted in order to procure the Battleship Lab using a best value process completely compliant with the FAR.
  3. Past performance information on critical individuals.  “This was perceived by all to be a very important concept.”  “The use of individual past performance information has a definite impact in the design/construction phase, much more than is obvious in the selection phase.” 

PIPS Performance

Phil Roybal, Construction Contracts, strongly recommended that the PIPS method of interview and RAVA (risk assessment value added), in itself was a huge improvement to the way the COE selects their best value.  He also stated on smaller projects, which had more competitors, that the PIPS concepts would have an even greater savings on time, energy, and effort….Time saving estimate by the team over the traditional best value approach: two days less or 40% time reduction, with full team (10 people.)”

Not only did the PIPS process reduce time in the procurement, it provided a high performing contractor who (Table 15.24):

  1. Finished on time
  2. Caused no deviations
  3. Utilized the Weekly Risk Report (WRR) and Risk Management Plan(RMP) to minimize and mitigate risk for the client.
Performance Criteria Results
# of Change orders for additional work 22
Risk that Caused change orders 24
Original proposed cost $53.5 Million
Cost of change orders $1.35 Million
Cost deviations due to contractor 0
Time deviations due to contractor 0

Table 15.24: Pilot Performance Results