Job order contracting (JOC): how it works

The Army's supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (AFARS subpart 5117.90) gives a clear definition. A JOC contract is an IDIQ contract and an alternative way to handle repair, maintenance and minor construction. It holds a large set of task descriptions, units of measure and pre-set unit prices, and each order is built from several of those pre-priced tasks. Gordian, which publishes JOC price books, also calls JOC an IDIQ construction delivery method.

Two pieces set every price:

• The unit price book (UPB). A catalog of construction tasks with set prices. In the Army's rule, unit prices cover direct material, labor and equipment, but not indirect costs or profit. Owners use commercial books, such as Gordian's Construction Task Catalog or RSMeans data, or tailor their own.
• The coefficient. The contractor's bid multiplier, applied to the book's prices. It carries what the book leaves out, such as overhead, insurance and bonding, plus profit. Washington State's JOC guidelines note that it is also called a multiplier or adjustment factor, and that it can be above or below 1, depending on the book.

The owner competes the contract once. Washington agencies, for example, score proposals, interviews and coefficients. After award, the owner issues projects as job orders for the term without bidding each one. The Center for Job Order Contracting Excellence says owners most often use JOC to clear deferred maintenance backlogs and handle recurring project needs. Washington's guidelines trace the method to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1980s.

Good fits

• Recurring repair, renovation, maintenance and minor construction across many sites.
• Deferred maintenance backlogs and quick-turn recurring needs.
• Multi-trade jobs that need one contractor to coordinate the trades.
• Work that doesn't need full design. Washington's guidelines compare it to "over the counter" permit work.
• A yearly workload large enough that the benefits outweigh the cost of setting up and running the contract, the test the Army applies.

Poor fits

• Very small jobs. The Army treats projects at or below the micro-purchase threshold for construction as inappropriate for JOC, because of order processing costs and the simpler methods available.
• Recurring services such as custodial work, grounds maintenance or utility plant operation. The Army also excludes architect-engineer services and design-build.
• Single-trade jobs with little coordination, and jobs with few matching tasks in the book.
• Large specialty equipment purchases, which Washington's guidelines list as a limitation. Equipment can be bought on a product contract instead, such as Sourcewell Contract #060326-BIDR for utility poles or Sourcewell Contract #062326-BIDR for generators and power equipment; see our Sourcewell generator contract guide.
• Work your state law doesn't allow. Washington caps each work order and the yearly contract value, and requires at least 90 percent of the work to be subcontracted. A construction-law blog reported in May 2026 that a New York court had barred a school district from using a purchasing cooperative's pre-priced contract for the rest of a construction project.

Gordian describes ezIQC as its cooperative job order contracting program. It gives eligible public agencies, educational institutions, healthcare organizations and similar entities access to pre-bid, competitively awarded JOC contracts through cooperative purchasing networks, interlocal agreements and group purchasing organizations, in select states and provinces.

On Sourcewell, Gordian holds Sourcewell contract #091620-GGI, "Building/infrastructure repairs, alterations, and restoration services." The listing names the ezIQC program alongside a locally customized construction task catalog, job order development and construction management services, and shows a maturity date of October 1, 2027. When Sourcewell selected Gordian in 2020, it described the contract as coordinating local IDIQ construction contractors for its construction program. Gordian's state sheets, such as the one for Arizona, name that Sourcewell contract.

Before using it, confirm that ezIQC is offered where your project is, that your state law lets you buy construction through a cooperative, and that your funding rules allow it. Our guide to cooperative contracts covers the due diligence. BIDR Technologies' own page on this delivery method is Why ezIQC.