Trade-in for Service Contracts
Department Of Health And Human Services
A team from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), identified surplus analytical equipment and coordinated a trade-in of that surplus equipment for an extension of a critical maintenance contract for a new piece of critical equipment.
Rather than paying for deactivating an active power source in obsolete equipment, the team proposed bundling the inactive sources and using them to trade-in for a reduced price on a new piece of equipment on a new/extended maintenance agreement. This idea resulted in avoiding the cost to surplus old power sources while reducing the cost of a new critical maintenance agreement.
The circumstances that led to the development of the practice included the failure of three old Liquid Scintillation Counters without a maintenance contract. The shortage of funds and the cost to remove the source from each of the inoperative counters called for an innovative solution.
The cooperation among key staff personnel, an active radiation safety program and the openness of management to different thinking contributed to the environment that fostered the cooperation needed to make the staff’s innovative idea a reality. The challenges overcome with this new practice were the time constraints, the necessity to prove the concept to the satisfaction of Federal Acquisition Regulations by having to have three vendors in this unique area.
The deactivation of three pieces of the surplus equipment would have cost $8,700. The extended maintenance contract provided the agency with a value of $5,000 for a minimum total benefit to the FDA of $13,700.
The practice is replicable and transferable for any major research organization. The savings could be considerable for major users that are paying to have radiation sources removed.
For more information, contact Veronica Johnson on 301-827-8246, or by email at vjohnson@cfsan.fda.gov.
