II. Competition Advocate Role

The Competition Advocate is responsible for promoting competition and improving the competitive performance of the Postal Service. The CA must maintain a program that includes identifying, tracking, and following up on actions to remove barriers to competition. The CA is responsible for the following:

• Challenging barriers to the competition of Postal Service requirements.
• Assisting purchase/supply chain management teams in the development of effective SCM solutions and obtaining best value.
• Providing independent advice to contracting officers (COs) regarding proposed noncompetitive purchases of $1M or greater.
• Producing an annual report on noncompetitive purchasing activity.

The CA is appointed by the Vice President, Supply Management (see Appendix A) and the CA’s role and responsibilities are defined in Section 2-10, Determine Extent of Competition, of the Postal Service’s Supplying Principles and Practices (SPs and Ps), and Management Instruction SP S2-2011-1, Noncompetitive Purchases. The complete SPs and Ps can be found internally on the USPS\u00A8 Intranet site: http://blue.usps.gov/policy/ and externally at: http://about.usps.com/manuals/spp/html/welcome.htm.

See Appendix B for excerpts of the SPs and Ps related to competition and the CA’s role.

The MI is available internally on the Postal Service Intranet site: http://blue.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/manage/sps2111.pdf.

See Appendix G for a copy of the MI.