Proposal Evaluation | The Contracting Education Academy

September 10, 2019 By cs

Patience you must have: No timeline for massive cloud contract, says DoD chief

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said he has no “firm timeline in mind” for completing a review of the Pentagon’s controversial enterprise cloud procurement and hinted that other factors may delay the program.

Speaking to reporters Sept. 5, Esper said the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s review of the Pentagon’s handling of the procurement, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, also hinders the future of the program.

“I saw where another DoD IG is doing another review. So in some ways, the timeline isn’t completely mine,” Esper told reporters Sept. 5.

Legislators, including Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, have written letters to Esper asking for the award to be delayed until after the inspector general had completed its review. In early August, after pressure from Congress and reported criticism of the program by President Donald Trump, Esper announced he was going to review the contract. At the time, Pentagon spokesperson Elissa Smith said “no decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

However, Esper emphasized that the Pentagon needed cloud technology to develop better artificial intelligence capabilities, but did not specifically say that JEDI was the solution.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2019/09/06/patience-you-must-have-no-timeline-for-massive-cloud-contract-says-dod-chief

February 22, 2019 By AMK

Bots could be climbing another rung on the workforce ladder

Bots have been making some headway in the government workforce, performing the kinds of mundane, clerical, routine tasks that make the people who do them feel less than human.

But robotic systems may soon take it up a notch, gaining new responsibilities with basic but essential procurement duties.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently issued a request for information looking for robotics and intelligent process automation applications in the commercial sector. The robots would need to perform tasks such as evaluating proposals, automating market research, performing cost and price analyses, carrying out modification actions, and issuing price negotiation memoranda. The Pentagon’s top research arm isn’t proposing that robots run the show or take people’s jobs, but it is talking about the kind of jobs that might move robots up a theoretical pay grade from what they’ve been doing.

DARPA said it wants to look into the possibility of using the “operational efficiency and functional capabilities” of such systems to perform “routine administrative tasks and document generation in the government procurement process.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.governmentciomedia.com/bots-could-be-climbing-another-rung-workforce-ladder

January 28, 2019 By AMK

DARPA looks to procurement bots

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for a few good bots to help with procurement.

In a request for information posted Jan. 23, DARPA said it wants information on off-the-shelf options for robotic and intelligent process automation tools that can increase efficiency and expand its ability to manage routine administrative tasks such as proposal evaluation, market research, cost and price analysis and documentation related to price negotiations.

DARPA is also considering integrating robotic process automation into Defense Department IT systems, including the System for Award Management, Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System and the Standard Performance System/Procurement Desktop-Defense. Respondents are asked to provide available information on the software’s security and any interoperability limitations it might have with existing government systems.

Keep reading this article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/01/24/darpa-rpa.aspx

March 5, 2018 By AMK

GAO sustains protest of $771 million Defense Intelligence Agency contract

The Defense Intelligence Agency should consider re-competing a $771 million information technology task order it awarded to a company called The Buffalo Group last year, a government auditor said Feb. 21, 2018.

The contracting giant ManTech Advanced Systems International protested the award in October, saying the defense agency didn’t adequately explain its decision.

ManTech’s bid came in higher than The Buffalo Group’s at about $846 million but the company scored better on other factors. Notably, the agency “determined that ManTech’s risk of unsuccessful performance was low and that The Buffalo Group’s risk of unsuccessful performance was moderate,” the decision from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) states.

The defense agency should have explained in greater detail why the lower price of The Buffalo Group bid was more important than ManTech’s technical superiority, GAO said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/02/gao-sustains-protest-771-million-defense-intelligence-agency-contract/146147/

January 26, 2017 By AMK

GAO ruling lets GSA buy the USDA steak, not the mystery meat

The General Services Administration (GSA) may have just put the first nail in the coffin that eventually will bury the widespread use of lowest-price, technically acceptable (LPTA) contracts for services.

The Government Accountability Office’s decision to deny four protests of GSA’s Alliant 2 contracts for IT services could end up being a landmark ruling that is that first nail.

“Lowest-price technically acceptable has been disfavored among contractors for putting price over innovation. Now we have protesters who in essence claim that cost was only nominally and improperly considered in the Alliant 2 evaluation,” said Barbara Kinosky, managing partner of Centre Law & Consulting LLC. “We have seen DoD move away from LPTA. This is the first major requirement coming out of a civilian agency that is clearly saying, ‘Contractors, we are looking for smart over cheap. Give us the USDA steak, not the convenience store mystery meat.’ I am confident this is a trend we will now see more of since GSA has taken the lead in the technology area where we definitely need to excel.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2017/01/gao-ruling-lets-gsa-buy-usda-steak-not-mystery-meat/