[jcnnghm]

We're talking about two different things. The government decides its requirements, not the contractor. Essentially, the government says what it wants, and how you are to deliver it.

For the email example, they said how many servers, how many T1 lines, and how powerful they all had to be. They also wanted usage logs from the T1's for capacity planning. The contractor doesn't have input there.

That's essentially the case with the bolts as well. It's in the specification, the contractor doesn't have the power to say we are going to use these other bolts because they're standard. Items are specified in a specific way for a reason, with bolts, it's because those particular bolts absolutely have to stand up to the rated forces, because they're likely to experience them, with combat and all.

[timcash]

Right so the people creating the contracts are not doing their research. We need to spend more time thinking about how we do things so we dont pay for the same thing over and over. We need a way to make the fact that this bolt has been built public and accessible so if someone needs something similar they can contact the right folks and ask. Why would they say how many t1 lines are need and how many servers? That is silly. What if someone could get the same effect with less power and bandwidth? why wouldn't we use the superior solution. Again to make your point we would need to know what the ultimate goal of the system is and determine if indeed that was the only way to solve the problem. That is the whole point of having competition after all.

[jcnnghm]

"We need a way to make the fact that this bolt has been built public and accessible so if someone needs something similar they can contact the right folks and ask."

Not really. If you need a bolt that absolutely needs to be able to withstand the rated forces at the specified size and weight, it needs to be non-destructively tested. The expensive part isn't the bolt, it's the testing.

You don't want it to be tested when it's the last bolt left in a redundant pair and it sheers off.

"Why would they say how many t1 lines are need and how many servers? That is silly. What if someone could get the same effect with less power and bandwidth?"

Because they did a needs analysis and calculated the probable amount of bandwidth, and decided that redundancy was necessary as well. This stuff isn't just a guess, it is based on hard data.

[timcash]

Can you provide the analysis? It seems like you are doing some hand waving and have resolved that fact that this solution was the only solution which I am skeptical of. Perhaps you can provide the RFP?