DISA | The Contracting Education Academy

August 26, 2019 By cs

HHS plans launch of AI, blockchain-based acquisition portal

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is test launching an acquisition portal named Accelerate that infuses blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

The blockchain-based acquisition portal will get a test run this fall and launch the beginning of the year, HHS CIO Jose Arrieta said.

Speaking at NextGov’s Emerging Tech summit on Aug. 14, Arrieta said the agency has been working on developing microservices for its Accelerate blockchain and artificial intelligence-infused acquisition portal.

The platform’s deep database of contracting data from the agency’s five acquisition systems will drive automatic pricing breaks for government the same way consumers can use competitive data at major retailers.

“If you look up the price of something on Amazon and show it to the cashier at Target or Best Buy,” he said, they will immediately give you the comparable discount offered at those other retailers. “That’s empowering. We created that ability for the contracting professional” on the portal, he said.

Keep reading this article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/08/16/hhs-accelerate.aspx

July 11, 2019 By AMK

DISA, DSS award second OTA to build governmentwide security clearance system

Defense officials said Tuesday that they had awarded a $75 million other transaction agreement to build major components of the IT system that will eventually handle all background investigations and security clearance adjudications for federal employees and contractors.

The award went to a team of vendors led by Perspecta, the same large government contractor that won a separate $49 million OTA last year to build another portion of the National Background Investigation System (NBIS).

The new agreement is specifically meant to build the security architecture and data services for NBIS. Officials decided it was needed after lessons learned from the first OTA, which focused primarily on building investigation management tools.

“We’ve had pieces of the NBIS application running at other DoD agency data centers and being built by other partners, independent of this common enterprise architecture,” said Terry Carpenter, the program executive officer for NBIS. “What we’re figuring out is by building out a common data broker, we can get an even greater efficiency. This is a federal-wide service that has to be up 365 days a year, 24 by seven. And to assure that type of robustness, we really wanted to make sure we were taking advantage of the cloud architecture to make sure that the application has those kinds of properties: Self-healing, self-aware, can expand with the demand. And all of those pieces are in this new OTA.”

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/nbib-transfer-to-dod/2019/05/disa-dss-award-second-ota-to-build-governmentwide-security-clearance-system/

June 20, 2019 By AMK

Government innovation? Weirdness comes in threes

How often have you heard that the government is stodgy and resistant to change? Large bureaucracies, both in business and government, do trend that way. But three curious initiatives from federal agencies occurred in the days leading to the long Memorial Day weekend.

Unrelated, they nevertheless connect thematically by showing an instinct towards government innovation, that is, a government willing to try something different.

First was the appointment of Jose Arrietta as the chief information officer of the Department of Health and Human Services. I’ve interviewed Arrietta a couple of times. He’s a smart cookie. He’s possesses good technology chops, having been one of the people trying to prove how blockchain can work in federal settings. In his relatively short time at HHS, Arrietta saw to it that the first blockchain application received authority to operate. That in itself is radical.

But as Jason Miller reported, Arrietta is an unconventional choice to lead an IT complex as vast and diverse as that of HHS. It’s government innovation in personnel. He’s mainly an acquisition guy, and acquisition is an important part of technology and information management. The blockchain application is in fact acquisition. Now Arrietta will have to show he can widen his viewpoint and make things happen in all areas overseen by a CIO.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2019/05/government-innovation-weirdness-comes-in-threes/

March 7, 2019 By AMK

What you don’t know about the Pentagon’s DEOS contract

While the Pentagon’s high-profile Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) procurement is stalled over legal action, contracting officials are close to bidding out its other multibillion cloud procurement, the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract.

Officials are currently reviewing feedback from industry through a draft solicitation for DEOS the General Services Administration and Defense Department released last month.

Depending upon responses, GSA — which, in a change announced last fall, is running the procurement — will soon issue a second draft solicitation or simply bid DEOS out.

Yet, DEOS is only the first phase of the Defense Department’s three-phase Enterprise Collaboration and Productivity Services, or ECAPS.

According to the draft solicitation, the DEOS portion of ECAPS, referred to as “capability set 1,” will cover an enterprise productivity suite, messaging, content management and collaboration services. A GSA spokesperson clarified to Nextgov that capability sets 2 and 3 will be met through “future acquisitions,” meaning they will not be bid out under DEOS.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/02/what-you-dont-know-about-pentagons-deos-contract/155155/

November 15, 2018 By AMK

GAO reiterates that agencies must meaningfully consider price in ‘best value’ tradeoffs

In three related bid protest decisions made public in the last few weeks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaffirmed the principle that agencies must meaningfully consider price when making best value tradeoff decisions.

GAO sustained the protests, stressing that merely paying lip service to price while selecting a more expensive, higher-rated offeror is not sufficient — agencies must provide a rational explanation for why they have decided to pay a premium for the awardee’s technical superiority.

In Solers, Inc., B-414672.3 et al.; Technatomy Corporation, B-414672.5; and OGSystems, LLC, B-414672.6 et al., three disappointed offerors challenged the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) award of Multiple Award Task Order contracts to 14 contractors as part of the Systems Engineering, Technology, and Innovation program.

The solicitation provided that DISA would make award on a best-value tradeoff basis considering price and four technical factors that, when combined, were significantly more important than price. The agency made award to the 14 highest rated proposals in the non-price factors, opining — without elaboration — that “the technical merit of those proposals justifies paying a price premium over lower-rated, lower-priced proposals.” Indeed, throughout the evaluation process, the agency repeatedly noted — again without elaboration — that the awardees’ proposals were worth a premium.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/11/hey-big-spender-gao-reiterates-that-agencies-must-meaningfully-consider-price-in-best-value-tradeoffs/

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is test launching an acquisition portal named Accelerate that infuses blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Defense officials said Tuesday that they had awarded a $75 million other transaction agreement to build major components of the IT system that will eventually handle all background investigations and security clearance adjudications for federal employees and contractors.

How often have you heard that the government is stodgy and resistant to change? Large bureaucracies, both in business and government, do trend that way. But three curious initiatives from federal agencies occurred in the days leading to the long Memorial Day weekend.

While the Pentagon’s high-profile Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) procurement is stalled over legal action, contracting officials are close to bidding out its other multibillion cloud procurement, the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract.

In three related bid protest decisions made public in the last few weeks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaffirmed the principle that agencies must meaningfully consider price when making best value tradeoff decisions.

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