Following the Arizona Branch Office: Driving excellence and delivers results

Following the Arizona Branch Office: Driving excellence and delivers results

By DCAA Staff Writer

Innovation, efficiency, and mission dedication are at the heart of the Arizona Branch Office (AZBO), Honeywell suboffice, forward pricing team's success. Over the past year, the team has diligently worked on complex audits while providing critical support to buying commands and contractors with exceptional results. Their work exemplifies DCAA's commitment to delivering value to the Department and supporting the Warfighter.

The AZBO forward pricing team has been instrumental in ensuring the Department receives fair and reasonable pricing for critical programs. Over the past year, the team successfully delivered nine multi-million-dollar complex proposal audits, rate reviews, and white paper drafts. They provided recurring negotiation support for key buying commands within the Navy and the Air Force. Additionally, they opened two estimating system deficiency assignments, one of which has already been issued.

Their efforts have directly impacted several high-profile programs and their work received outstanding scores for providing exceptional support on three separate Customer Feedback Initiative (CFI) surveys. In one instance, the team supported a $500 million program by providing extensive pricing updates during negotiations. Army Contracting Command (ACC)-Detroit praised the team for their outstanding support throughout the program process. The contracting officer and Financial Liaison Auditor (FLA) commended the team for going above and beyond to help settle negotiations. Similarly, the team received high praise for their thorough audit report with ACC-Redstone describing the report as "one of the easiest, clearest audit reports they've read." In addition to thorough and clear audit reports, the team earned praise for outstanding assistance to new contracting officers and throughout the negotiation process, with the FLA noting, "It was one of the best CFI surveys received from a customer."

When it comes to challenges, the AZBO team leverages technology and innovative problem solving to create solutions that support Department goals and the customer. In one scenario, the team recognized difficulty obtaining actual costs or expenditures from a high-risk contractor. Anticipating future struggles, the team proactively collaborated with ACC-Detroit, ACC-Redstone, and the Air Force to modify and supplement Requests for Proposals (RFP), resulting in a unified government approach for current and future contracting work.

Technology is used to help process and streamline work. Some tools are created in Power BI, an analytics platform, to track data through different categories, implement filtering systems to evaluate more data at once, enhance visibility for data, create templates, and more. These tools save time, money, improve consistency, and provide improved data accuracy.

The AZBO forward pricing team's dedication to efficiency and excellence has set a high standard for delivering results. By leveraging innovative tools, fostering collaboration, and maintaining a mission-first mindset, the team has strengthened trust and collaboration across the Department.