Two New Sites Aim to Promote Competition.

• Author: Kutner, Joshua A.
• Position: Web sites - Past Performance Automated Information System: http://dodppais.navy.mil - A-76 contracts: http://emissary.acq.osd.mil/inst/share.nsf - Brief Article

Two new Pentagon-funded Web sites are designed to encourage fiercer competition among vendors vying for contract awards.

One of the sites is for the Defense Department's Past Performance Automated Information System (PPAIS), a central database that allows program managers and contracting officials to review the past performance records of potential bidders. This Web page, available at http://dodppais.navy.mil, provides users with access to more than 8,600 past-performance report cards, which embody more than $300 billion in defense contracts. The reason that the Web site contains a Navy address is that the program is managed by the Naval Sea Logistics Center (NSLC) Detachment, in Portsmouth, N.H.

NSLC was chosen to harbor PPAIS because of its experience in managing the Navy's Contractor Performance Assessment and Reporting System (CPARS), which offers information on more than $80 billion in Navy contracts and delivery orders. Now, NSLC has the responsibility of providing a core database for all of the services. Each service--the Army, Navy and Air Force--still maintains its own system, officials said. But PPAIS acts as a supplement for conducting research across service lines.

PPAIS pulls report cards from the Army's Past Performance Information Management System, the Navy's CPARS, the Air Force CPARS and the Defense Information Systems Agency's Past Performance Evaluation Tool.

The project is sponsored by the Joint Electronic Commerce Program Office (JECPO), which is located at the Defense Logistics Agency, at Fort Belvoir, Va. Online past performance evaluation is another initiative designed to help the Pentagon reach its goal of eliminating paperwork from the contracting process.

A popular method throughout the department for evaluating potential contractors is to review their past experiences in doing business with the Pentagon. If a vendor's past performance record shows positive marks, the buyer may be more inclined to enlist that contractor's services.

The system is available to Defense Department personnel for market surveys and source selection. Contractors are allowed access only to their own data.

To get access to the system, users must have a Web browser that supports 128-bit encryption. They must obtain a UserID and password at the site and then request access. According to the PPAIS user manual: "Generally, the user would request access from the head of the component group affiliated with his or her command."

Once inside the...