Code of Federal Regulations Title 48. Federal Acquisition Regulations System 48.15.002 Types of negotiated acquisition

(a) Sole source acquisitions. When contracting in a sole source environment, the request for proposals (RFP) should be tailored to remove unnecessary information and requirements;  e.g., evaluation criteria and voluminous proposal preparation instructions.

(b) Competitive acquisitions. When contracting in a competitive environment, the procedures of this part are intended to minimize the complexity of the solicitation, the evaluation, and the source selection decision, while maintaining a process designed to foster an impartial and comprehensive evaluation of offerors' proposals, leading to selection of the proposal representing the best value to the Government (see 2.101).