DHS | The Contracting Education Academy

December 31, 2019 By cs

Acquisition leans into automation

Automation is gaining traction in federal acquisition.

“When we met with senior leaders a few weeks ago, they had a list of processes they wanted automated by that week,” Lesley Field, deputy administrator for federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, said at a panel discussion at the 2019 Presidential Rank Awards Leadership Summit on Dec. 17. She said the acquisition workforce is enthusiastic about developing robotics process automation tools within the government.

Soraya Correa, chief acquisition officer at the Department of Homeland Security, noted that automation technologies offer a number of advantages, including limiting problems that can stem from data bias.

“With automation, we can get to a fairer process,” he said. “Right now, we engage more data bias because we’re limited by what we can do as long as we’re telling industry what we’re willing to do and where we’re going to go look for this information.”

Keep reading this article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/12/24/acquisition-automation.aspx

December 9, 2019 By cs

After 2 years in limbo, FEMA cancels $250 million IT support contract

The single-award contract was created to help the emergency management agency manage its IT. Now, that work will be spread across existing staff and contracts.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is opting to cancel a $250 million IT support services contract that has been sitting in acquisition limbo for more than two years.

The agency posted a notice On Nov. 25th to the Contracting Opportunities website announcing the cancelation of the Information Technology Management Support Services Pillar contract. The single-award contract would have had a ceiling of $249 million, with a one-year base period and three one-year options.

FEMA initially released the request for proposals in July 2017, with bids due in late August of the same year. However, several leadership changes within the Office of the Chief Information Officer continually delayed award of the contract. Now, more than two years later, a reassessment of the agency’s needs has prompted FEMA OCIO to pull back the solicitation and opt instead to use existing DHS staff and contracts to meet those mission needs.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2019/11/after-two-years-limbo-fema-cancels-250m-it-support-contract/161531/

December 3, 2019 By cs

DHS acquisitions are steady despite CIO departure

Technology procurement at the Department of Homeland Security remains on steady ground despite the departure of CIO John Zangardi earlier this month for an industry job.

“We’re going to miss Dr. Zangardi, but the next CIO will come in,” said Soraya Correa, the chief acquisition officer at DHS, said on the sidelines of an industry event hosted by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management. “What I’ve seen is that CIOs are pretty much aligned with things like cloud and the strategies we’re trying to implement.”

Correa added: “Leadership changes are going to happen. That’s the nature of government. The question is: do goals and strategies still align. Dr. Zangardi and his staff knew where we were trying to go. He brought his deputy in, and we started working those strategies.”

DHS Deputy CIO, Beth Cappello, is expected to move into the acting CIO post.

On the procurement front, DHS has yet to issue its solicitation for the General Services Administration’s $50 billion, 15-year, next-generation telecommunications contract.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/11/21/dhs-acquistion-cio-change.aspx?m=1

October 1, 2019 By cs

A new contract offers on-demand support for cyber missions

The government has selected Parsons for a $590 million cyber contract called Combatant Commands Cyber Mission Support (CCMS).

The contract, run out of the General Services Administration (GSA), will support cyber capabilities — both hardware and software requirements — across the government to include geographic and functional combatant commands, the interagency and federal/civilian agencies.

“The contract, the way it was structured was to be able to develop and deliver capability — multi-domain capability — across the services, both defensive, non-defensive capabilities, as well as open-source, intelligence analytics through this contracting mechanism,” Paul Decker, executive vice president and head of cyber and intelligence business for Parsons, told Fifth Domain.

“The intent of this is for it to be a multiuse contract to serve both the DoD, as well as interagencies across the department … A key takeaway is as organizational requirements continue to get fed up through the various different tactical organizations, it is all going to be about having technology that is interoperable, integrateable and that can be used at each echelon at an organization.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2019/09/25/a-new-contract-offers-on-demand-support-for-cyber-missions

September 4, 2019 By cs

DHS wants AI to improve the contract performance assessment reporting system

The Homeland Security Department (DHS) wants proofs or viable prototypes that demonstrate how artificial intelligence can support contracting officers as they conduct past performance evaluations and make effective use of data from the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), according to a solicitation on the FedBizOpps website.

Run through the department’s commercial solutions opening pilot program to competitively procure innovative items, the solicitation was originally posted in early August but amended this week to include the government’s answers to submitted questions.

“An AI solution for CPARS may significantly assist contracting officers conducting past performance evaluations by identifying relevant past performance assessment records in a more accurate, consistent, faster and useful manner, reducing the administrative workload on contracting officers while increasing the quality of the outcome,” the solicitation states.

When selecting services over the simplified acquisition threshold, contracting officers are required to consider vendors’ past performance. CPARS is the central system federal officials use to collect and share contractor and vendor past performance information. But according to the solicitation, anecdotal evidence indicates that contracting officers face challenges trying to use the data for past performance evaluations, due primarily to the “volume of records and the inability to rapidly identify relevant reviews.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/08/dhs-wants-ai-improve-contract-performance-assessment-reporting-system/159418/

Automation is gaining traction in federal acquisition.

The single-award contract was created to help the emergency management agency manage its IT. Now, that work will be spread across existing staff and contracts.

Technology procurement at the Department of Homeland Security remains on steady ground despite the departure of CIO John Zangardi earlier this month for an industry job.

The government has selected Parsons for a $590 million cyber contract called Combatant Commands Cyber Mission Support (CCMS).

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