Contract Authoring and Management System (CAMS)

CAMS is the primary contracting system. It is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system that supports the purchase of supplies, services, equipment, and mail transportation (excluding surface transportation). Contracting actions are coded using the following competition classification codes:

• Below Competitive Threshold (BCT) (less than $10K)
• Competitive
• Competitive — Simplified Purchasing
• Noncompetitive — Compelling Business Interests
• Noncompetitive — Industry Structure or Practice
• Noncompetitive — Sole Source
• Noncompetitive — Superior Performance
• Ordering Agreements — Comp Code Not Applicable
• Required Source — Policy/Legally Mandated
• Required Source — Regulated Utility
• Unauthorized Commitment

For purposes of this report, the BCT actions are excluded because they are excluded from the competition requirements. All other classifications, other than competitive, are considered noncompetitive.

From October 1, 2011, to September 30, 2012, there were a total of 6,860 contract actions executed equal to or above the competitive threshold ($10K) with commitments totaling $4.3B in CAMS. The commitment value of competitive contracting actions in CAMS equaled $3.3B or 76.7% of total contract actions. The number of competitive contracting actions totaled 5,040 or 73.5% of total contracting actions in CAMS.

See Appendix C for more details related to CAMS contract actions.