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The long wait is over: The updated Standard Form (SF) 330 for Architect-Engineer Qualification was finally published in the Federal Register on Dec. 11, 2003. Officially titled New Consolidated Form for Selection of Architect-Engineer Contractors (read "firms" for "contractors"), it becomes effective on Jan. 10, 2004 and is mandatory as of June 8, 2004.
SF330 replaces SF254 and SF255, unchanged since 1975. The forms are used by federal agencies to screen and select firms for architectural and engineering services, and in the past 25 years have led to the design and subsequent construction of hundreds of billions of dollars of projects.
Each agency maintains its own database, and has some leeway in interpreting the form in areas such as total numbers of pages permitted, numbers of projects completed, and firms' building type experience. Traditionally, the forms have also been used by state and local agencies to qualify A/E firms, and private industry also adapted them to its own selection procedures.
Unchanged since 1975. The forms have not been updated despite giant shifts in the way A/Es conduct their practices, the arrival of new information technology used to create, correct, and transmit contract documents, and the reduced size of the federal government, which sharply clipped the numbers of staff available to process the forms. In addition, the forms did not change to accommodate an increase in the volume of federally financed construction, especially in surface transportation, justice facilities, office buildings, civil engineering projects, and airport construction.
In 1996 the Federal Facilities Council, an oversight group, decided the old forms needed improvement. It appointed an ad hoc committee to develop a new form in 1998.
The members agreed to combine the two forms. Until then, A/E firms used SF254 to file their credentials with various federal agencies with whom they wanted to do business. They submitted SF255 when a project came up, which gave firms a chance to focus their qualifications to fit a particular type of building or engineering type or project.
After deciding to combine the two forms, the interagency group-which included representatives from the General Services Administration (GSA; www.gsa.gov), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE; www.usace.army.mil), the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC; (www.navfac.navy.mil), NASA (www.nasa.gov), and the Department of...