Thank you for your question. As a follow-up, the term best-value can be found in many important references to include the: Product Support Manager (PSM) Guidebook; DOD Product Support Business Case Analysis Guidebook; and Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR).

According to the FAR (2.101), “Best value means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Government's estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirement.”

The DOD Product Support Business Case Analysis Guidebook defines “Best Value” as the “intersection of performance and cost, based on specific criteria. The Product Support BCA team will establish the evaluation criteria for both financial and non-financial factors early in the process after conducting background research and obtaining approval from the governance body.”

The PSM Guidebook, states that “Best value is defined as the tradeoff between cost and performance that provides the greatest overall benefit to the warfighter and the taxpayer.”

Notably, while cost is listed as a factor within two of the three provided definitions, it is not the only criteria that will be considered as a part of the best value analysis and product support BCA process, which is outlined within Section 4 of the Product Support Business Case Analysis Guidebook.

Of additional note, the FAR references “…the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirement”. The Product Support BCA Guidebook provides a non-exhaustive quantitative and qualitative listing of benefits, within Section 4.4.3.1. These and / or other criteria may be determined by the Product Support Business Case Analysis team to be of Best Value in response to the product support requirement.

Additional related content can be found at the following ACQuipedia Article links:

https://www.dau.edu/acquipedia/pages/articledetails.aspx#!491

https://www.dau.edu/acquipedia/pages/articledetails.aspx#!396