As a contracting officer for the aviation side of the USN, the movie Top Gun spawned many sayings that we used on a daily basis. When we had a problem, “Talk to me Goose” was one of those sayings we used in the office to signify there needed to be a serious discussion about a problem. The program office was encouraged to talk to their contracting officer as the CO could be your best friend or worse enemy. If they tried to do stuff behind the contracting officer’s back, it was usually the latter!
The same holds true for contractors. The contracting officer is there to help you. Fostering a strong relationship with the CO is important especially during contract performance. Many times you have a COR but your contract is not his primary job and he has limited authority. The CO is final authority on resolving any issues about changes, delays or other issues that may arise.
Recently we had a forum post where the COR was not responding to the contractor and it was impacting performance. The contractor had reached out to the CO and the CO took ownership of the problem and was doing his best to get to the COR and get his input on the technical issues. The delay was so long that there was going to be an impact to price and schedule. I advised the contractor to keep track of all the cost and schedule delays and get that info to the CO ASAP. The contractor was smart to reach out to the CO instead of waiting for the COR to respond.
As a CO I worked closely with many different companies and some were really good about keeping the government in the loop while others were terrible. I made a habit of putting a reminder on my calendar to reach out to the contractor 30 days before delivery. I wish I had done that earlier in my career but too many time I was blindsided by a contractor with last minute schedule problems. One time I called the contractor about 30 days in advance of delivery and was told that he was going to miss delivery by six months because he was having production problems with a critical supplier. I asked him when he planned to tell the government and his answer was, “I figured when it didn’t deliver on time the government would get to me eventually.” That approach did not elicit much in the way of sympathy when it came time to negotiate an extension and the program office and I were much more demanding when it came to consideration for the delay.
In another situation I had a contractor tell me three months in advance of the date for a test during development that the testing subcontractor told them that the equipment needed for the test was down and would not be available to conduct the test for 3 months. If the contractor waited for the equipment to be ready it would delay delivery 4 -5 months. However they felt that if some other test were done while waiting for the repair they could minimize the schedule impact by 2-3 months. After reviewing the plan, the Navy agreed and consideration for the delay was something that was very small and did not really impact the bottom line of the contractor.
COs have lots of leeway in determining consideration for contract delays. My experience is that contractors who work and communicate with the CO find themselves in a less adversely situation. Talk to your CO, keep their situational awareness high and that will go a long way to being viewed a “good” supplier.