Whenever circumstances suggest that it would add to the success of the purchase, such as when a solicitation contains complicated specifications or SOW, a preproposal conference may be held to brief suppliers. Notice of the preproposal conference should be contained in the solicitation. If time allows, suppliers should be allowed to submit written questions in advance, so that prepared answers may be distributed at the conference.
The entire purchase/SCM team should attend the conference. The CO or a designated representative must conduct the conference, with the assistance of the purchase/SCM team and assigned counsel, as appropriate.
A record of the conference must be furnished to all of the suppliers who received the solicitation. Because the role of that record is to ensure that all prospective suppliers fully understand the Postal Service’s intent with respect to the purchase, and not necessarily to provide a verbatim reconstruction of the conference, the record may be edited for clarity and brevity and corrected where necessary.
