Today, 18F and the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a powerful new labor category and pricing research tool to help the federal contracting community make smarter, faster buying decisions.
Contract Awarded Labor Category (CALC) allows contracting officers to conduct market research and price analysis for professional labor categories across a database of contract awarded prices for 48,000 labor categories from more than 5,000 recent GSA contracts.
Before CALC, contracting officers had to sift through paper contracts or comb through GSA Advantage files to stitch together a picture of fair and reasonable hourly labor rates.
CALC helps contracting officers determine the range of pricing — at the highest level — for a specific labor category. For example, a search for “Senior Engineer” will return comparable labor categories and their rates, which can be further narrowed by filtering for associated criteria such as years of experience, education level, etc.
This comparison is an important piece of information that contracting officers can use to inform their decision about which contracts should receive Requests for Quotations (RFQs), and in turn ensure the government is spending taxpayers dollars wisely and in the most efficient way.
More details on the data
CALC searches awarded ceiling prices (at the master contract level) on several of GSA’s professional services schedules, including Mission Oriented Business Integrated Services (MOBIS), Environmental, Logistics Worldwide (LOGWORLD), Professional Engineering Schedule, Language, Advertising and Integrated Marketing Schedules (AIMS), and the Consolidated Schedule.
What’s next?
Future releases for CALC are likely to include the ability to input a proposed price for a particular labor category to see where it falls against comparable rates, as well as additional ways to control, visualize, and export results.
In federal acquisition? You can help!
To get involved in shaping and advancing this tool (and other procurement-related tools), please get in touch with us at calc-18f@gsa.gov.
Other digital tools
CALC is one of the numerous digital tools including OASIS Discovery, PM/CPI Prices Paid Visualization, and the Statement of Work Library available on the Professional Services Category Hallway that support and improve how the federal community acquires professional services.