The Air Force is looking for an innovative DevOps platform to seamlessly integrate into its current environment and is tapping a General Services Administration pilot program to avoid having to go through the arduous processes set forth in the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
The Air Force — through a joint program between AFWERX, the Air Force Research Lab and Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center — is using GSA FEDSIM’s Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, pilot program to solicit bids from startups and private sector innovators who haven’t worked with the government in the past.
Rather than abiding by the FAR, which can often take months or years to get through the step-by-step solicitation process, the CSO process allows the contracting agency to issue a request for innovative solutions and fund multiple lines of research and development at the same time. This “opportunistic model,” as described by the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition University, is used for non-FAR-based contracts, like those issued using other transaction authorities.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/01/air-force-turns-gsa-pilot-devops-platform/154024/
