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IRS offering up to $7 million to develop ‘data mashing’ tools in support of frictionless acquisition

Using its experimental multiphase Pilot IRS contract vehicle, the agency issued a quickturn solicitation to improve data collection for a governmentwide effort to improve procurement.

The IRS is using its relatively new, quickturn procurement vehicle — Pilot IRS — to support a governmentwide data collection effort in support of fixing pain points in the government’s acquisition process.

This summer, the Office of Management and Budget rolled out a new cross-agency priority, or CAP, goal entitled “Frictionless Acquisition,” with the aim of delivering “commercial items at the same speed as the market place and manage customers’ delivery expectations for acquisitions of non-commercial items by breaking down barriers to entry using modern business practices and technologies,” according to the goal statement on Performance.gov.

Part of that goal includes improving information collected about federal procurements and the ways that data is standardized and combined to gain insights — also known as “data mashing.”

IRS procurement officials were tapped to figure out how best to accomplish this task with regard to prices for goods and services and issued a request for proposals this week using its experimental contracting vehicle.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/09/irs-offering-7m-develop-data-mashing-tools-support-frictionless-acquisition/168252/

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IRS floats experimental contract vehicle to help Administration meet procurement CAP goals

The IRS wants to mash up acquisition data to find insights into federal buying patterns and is using its experimental Pilot IRS procurement vehicle to test out new ideas.

The tax collection agency is working with the Office of Management and Budget on the Frictionless Acquisition Cross-Agency Priority, or CAP, goal, which “calls upon the government to modernize the collection, analysis, availability, and visualization of acquisition data for smarter and faster mission decision-making.”

To supplement this work, IRS officials are looking at current and innovative ways to combine distinct databases and sources on labor and wage rates into coherent, easy-to-use datasets with visualization and other analytical tools.

As part of this effort, the agency tapped its relatively new Pilot IRS program, which uses procurement methods in the Federal Acquisition Regulation to develop a phased funding contract vehicle that supports research and development. The program launched in early 2019 with a $7 million funding ceiling. But after some early successes — and well-managed failures — the program is growing in scope, both monetarily and programmatically.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/08/irs-floats-experimental-contract-vehicle-help-administration-meet-procurement-cap-goals/167442/

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Pilot IRS to return with new focus areas and significantly more funding

In the next three to six months, the IRS plans to issue new solicitations through its experimental contracting vehicle.

The IRS is considering tripling down on its experimental procurement vehicle Pilot IRS — an incremental funding program the tax agency uses to identify and develop cutting-edge technologies—with the second iteration of the program coming in the next few months, with three new focus areas and more than three times the funding up for grabs.

The first iteration of Pilot IRS sought to update the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, or FPDS-NG, using robotic process automation tools to improve data quality and limit the amount of manual data entry.  As with other alternative procurement methods like other transaction authority contracts, the Pilot IRS program uses a multi-phased funding approach that rewards vendors that meet milestones in a timely fashion.

Three weeks after issuing the solicitation in August, the IRS made five awards for the first phase, totaling $25,000. Since that time, “Two firms continue to receive funding, and have demonstrated return on investment rates of roughly 30-80% reductions in time required to make corrections to and improve the data in FPDS-NG,” according to a program update posted last Wednesday to beta.SAM.gov.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/03/pilot-irs-return-new-focus-areas-and-significantly-more-funding/163526/

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