Chapter 4. NASA Oversight Activities on Contracted Projects

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1

Oversight/insight of projects where prime or external contractors do the majority of the development effort has always been an important part of NASA programs and projects. With the new focus on Exploration and Space missions, not only will such projects increase, but also it will become more critical that NASA provide increased systems engineering on these projects before, during, and after contract performance.

4.1.2

This chapter defines a minimum set of technical activities and requirements for a NASA project technical team to perform before contract award, during contract performance, and upon completion of the contract on projects where prime or external contractors do the majority of the development effort. These activities and requirements are intended to supplement the common technical process activities and requirements of Chapter 3 and thus enhance the outcome of the contracted effort.

4.2 Activities Prior to Contract Award

4.2.1

The assigned NASA technical team shall prepare a SEMP that covers the periods before contract award, during contract performance, and upon contract completion in accordance with content contained in the annotated outline in Appendix D.

4.2.2

The assigned technical team shall use common technical processes, as implemented by the Center's documentation, to establish the technical inputs to the Request for Proposal (RFP) appropriate for the product to be developed, including product requirements and Statement of Work tasks.

4.2.3

The technical team shall determine the technical work products to be delivered by the offeror or contractor, to include a contractor SEMP that specifies their systems engineering approach for requirements development; technical solution definition; design realization; product evaluation; product transition; and technical planning, control, assessment, and decision analysis.

4.2.4

The technical team shall provide to the contracting officer, for inclusion in the RFP, the requirements for technical oversight activities planned in the NASA SEMP. (Care should be taken that no requirements or solicitation information is divulged prior to the release of the solicitation by the cognizant contracting officer.)

4.2.5

The technical team shall participate in the evaluation of offeror proposals following applicable NASA and Center source selection procedures.

4.3 During Contract Performance

4.3.1

The assigned technical team, under the authority of the cognizant contracting officer, shall perform the technical oversight activities established in the NASA SEMP.

4.4 Contract Completion

4.4.1

The assigned technical team shall participate in scheduled milestone reviews to finalize Government acceptance of the deliverables.

4.4.2

The assigned technical team shall participate in product transition to the customer and/or disposal as defined in the NASA SEMP.