Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO)
A Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) is a competitive procedure under 10 U.S.C. 3458 by which DoD awards fixed-price contracts for innovative commercial products or services through a general solicitation and peer, technical, or operational review, implemented at DFARS subpart 212.70.
A CSO is a general solicitation that invites proposals against broad problem statements rather than a spec. "Innovative" is the statutory gate: a technology, process, or method new as of the proposal's submission date, or a new application of an existing one. Selection runs through peer, technical, or operational review, proposals are judged against the announcement's criteria rather than against each other, and 10 U.S.C. 3458 deems the whole procedure competitive.
DFARS subpart 212.70 implements the authority for DoD. Awards must be fixed-price, including fixed-price incentive, and whatever is bought is treated as a commercial product or service, which pulls in FAR Part 12 procedures. Awards above $100 million need senior procurement executive approval under PGI 212.7003 plus congressional notification.
The practitioner miss is scoping. A requirement that is really a conventional buy dressed up as innovation will not survive the newness test, and cost-type work cannot ride a CSO at all — the fixed-price restriction has no exceptions.
Regulatory Reference
10 U.S.C. 3458; DFARS Subpart 212.70; DFARS PGI 212.7003
RFO Status
CSO authority is statutory and implemented in DFARS subpart 212.70, which the FAR Overhaul model deviations do not rewrite; DoD's Part 12 deviation carries forward the commercial framework a CSO award rides on.
Category
Processes & Methods
How AcqBot Helps
AcqBot screens a requirement against the 10 U.S.C. 3458 newness test, drafts the CSO announcement and evaluation criteria, and keeps the award file aligned with DFARS 212.70 — fixed-price contract type, commercial treatment, and the $100 million approval and notification thresholds.
Related glossary entries
Sources Sought Notice
A Sources Sought Notice is a pre-solicitation announcement, typically posted to SAM.gov, asking companies to identify their interest and capability to perform a prospective requirement — primarily used as market research to shape competition and set-aside decisions.
Request for Information (RFI)
A Request for Information (RFI) is a formal market research instrument used to gather industry input on capabilities, approaches, pricing structures, or draft requirements when the government is not yet ready to solicit — responses are voluntary and non-binding.
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA)
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) is a source selection process that awards to the lowest-priced offeror whose proposal meets minimum acceptability standards — no credit is given for exceeding requirements, and tradeoffs between price and quality are not permitted.
Best-Value Tradeoff
The best-value tradeoff process permits award to other than the lowest-priced or highest-rated offeror when the source selection authority documents that the superior proposal's benefits are worth its price premium, or that a cheaper proposal's savings outweigh its weaknesses.