ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Illinois (July 30, 2024) - Contracting workforce members from Army Contracting Command-Rock Island (ACC-RI) and personnel from Project Director Joint Services recently participated in a “train the trainer” event, which was led/facilitated by Jacob Phillips, quality assurance specialist, and Stephanie Brown, branch chief, Contract Administration Branch.
Brown stated that the intent behind this “train the trainer” opportunity originated from a customer request for training and best practices for ensuring compliance with contract administration functions, specifically in the area of quality assurance and development of Quality Assurance Surveillance Plans, also known as QASPs. As a result, the ACC-RI Contract Administration Branch executed a wholly new training regimen for Project Director Joint Services at Picatinny Arsenal in May, including ACC-RI acquisition members that would act as future mentors and trainers to their supported customers.
“These contracting professionals are able to educate and help their other program management counterparts that are not specific to the sites that we worked on while we were there,” said Brown. “They can help people at their other sites to work through this and future roles to put out quality documents for their contracts.”
To set the team up for success as future trainers and mentors, Phillips and Brown took a phased approach in executing this event, starting with classroom-based training where all participants were together, hearing and learning the same things. This provided all parties with the regulatory requirements for QASPs in accordance with FAR part 46, as well as templates, resources, further regulatory guidance, and best practices related to government contract quality assurance.
This encompasses all the functions and processes that are performed to ensure that the supplies and services that are on contracts valued at over $2,500 conform to quality requirements. Following the execution of the classroom-based training, they transitioned into the ‘why’ behind the training and closing with hands-on application.
“We did classroom instruction, but then we transitioned into a hands-on approach and actually provided everybody with templates, resources and documents that they were going to actually work on,” said Brown. “When we did that piece, we broke them into smaller groups, and we paired contracting personnel with their program management personnel that they work with day to day.”
Through execution of this event, the Contract Administration Branch created a collaborative learning environment that enabled the organizations to develop various QASPs in support of Scranton, Iowa and Radford Government Owned/Contractor Operated contracts.
Brown stated the people working on these teams don't see each other frequently because the Project Director Joint Services personnel work at Picatinny Arsenal and the contracting officers and specialists are at Rock Island Arsenal. Integrating the contracting members with their program counterparts to have them develop the quality assurance surveillance plans as a team was beneficial.
“Like I always say, you can't see eye-to-eye unless you meet face-to-face,” said Brown. “Even the program folks, I think had that same perspective. It was great to meet their counterparts in contracting so that then it will enable them in the future to work through setting up a baseline for them to have these QASPs in place. We only scratched the surface and so this is going to enable them to be able to work together to develop a quality product.”
Phillips stated one of the lessons learned was that the Government Owned/Contractor Operated scopes of work and other work products from the customer might not have been measurable in holding the contractor accountable.
“A lot of the time was spent in writing a performance requirement summary, otherwise known as a PRS, and being able to actually make those requirements in that scope of work measurable,” said Phillips. “So that was just something that when we went through the class that I didn't really realize people wouldn't understand, but that's one of the things in government contract quality assurance that you use to hold them accountable for their performance.”
Noel Costello, contract specialist, participated in the training and explained that the first day was a brief overview PowerPoint describing the purpose of a QASP and some of the surveillance practices and why they’re necessary.
“Overall, I think it was a beneficial training and there's more resources available to us now to go back and reference,” said Costello. “Now we're working on getting into compliance. It gave the Contracting Officer Representatives that could attend the ability to learn and to apply and ask questions and that's expedited the process.”
Costello explained that Brown and Phillips are excellent trainers and they're very thorough.
“They're very knowledgeable, their resources are helpful, and they go through the information at a pace that I think is very reasonable for those attending the course who may not have a lot of knowledge on the subject to begin with,” said Costello.
Not only will this event enable personnel to become mentors and trainers, the knowledge participants gained is expected to improve oversight of ACC-RI contracts by increasing skill that will empower them in holding contractors accountable, thereby increasing Army readiness.
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