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VA awards sole source contract to upgrade, automate its COVID-19 visualization tool

Contracting officials justified the $1.5 million award by citing a $6 million price tag to fully replace the tool.

The Veterans Affairs Department is using a specific data visualization tool in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and recently awarded a $1.5 million sole source contract to upgrade and automate the software.

VA awarded a contract to Four Points Technology through NASA’s governmentwide acquisition contract Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement, or SEWP, to acquire, integrate and maintain the latest version of Edge Technologies’ visualization tools.

While VA already uses Edge Technologies’ software to visualize patient data, the current tools rely on outdated Adobe Flash players with security holes, among other issues. Under the new contract, VA will be upgrading to the EdgeCore tool, which is based on HTML5 and comes with a host of other improvements.

“This acquisition will provide additional visualization and integration capabilities, eliminate security vulnerabilities related to Adobe Flash used in the current version, enhance 508 Disability Compliance, and provide new robotic process automation features,” according to the award announcement.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2020/08/va-awards-sole-source-contract-upgrade-automate-its-covid-19-visualization-tool/167965/

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In NASA’s contracting office, skip the buzzwords, please

NASA might be one of the most buzzworthy agencies but don’t expect any love from the procurement office if you come in throwing around buzzwords.

NASANASA prefers to focus on the requirements its mission owners need to fulfill their endeavors – like launching humans into space – and less on secondary ramifications like cost savings. That includes cloud computing, said Bill McNally, assistant administrator of NASA’s Office of Procurement, at least when it’s not intrinsically tied to mission requirements.

Just because the federal government is set to spend some $7.3 billion on cloud in fiscal 2016 does not itself merit buying it.

“If you walk into my office wanting to talk about cloud, you’re going to get kicked out my office,” McNally said. “The problem with government is, we’re spending too much time trying to understand cost savings rather than focusing on requirements.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cloud-computing/2016/06/nasas-contracting-office-skip-buzzwords-please/129315

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Adjusting government buying habits

The White House and General Services Administration’s category management initiative isn’t just the province of procurement offices and the contracting corps. It will have real impact in program offices as well.

ombEven more so as the practice evolves from its current focus on common purchases to those that are unique and critical to the missions of a few or just one agency.

Managing spending by category won’t just change how common goods and services are bought, it will affect why they’re bought. Both ingredients of the “why,” requirements and demand, are generated by programs and need to be aggregated in ways that make sense for effective and efficient acquisition to achieve the desired outcomes of the agency.

The Office of Management and Budget and its Office of Federal Procurement Policy are creating an infrastructure that will affect every agency and everyone involved in acquisition one way or the other.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2015/12/adjusting-governments-buying-habits/124228

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Protests delay implementation of NASA’s SEWP contracts

Four companies have filed bid protests to be included in NASA’s slate of IT solution contracts under the SEWP V program.

The space agency announced 97 contracts in four groups earlier this month, scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 1. With the four protests logged with the Government Accountability Office, implementation of those contract awards has been delayed.

Four companies – UNICOM Government Inc., BahFed Corp., NCS Technologies Inc. and KPaul Properties LLC – submitted protests on Oct. 20. All four protests are under review by the GAO, which must issue decisions by Jan. 28.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20141024/IT/310240010/Protests-delay-implementation-SEWP-V-contracts

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NASA awards flurry of contracts under SEWP

NASA has a host of new vendors to buy IT services from, after awarding 56 contracts to more than 40 companies under the latest version of its Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement, known as SEWP.

Announced Oct. 1, SEWP V is the fifth generation of the multiaward governmentwide acquisition contract. This particular iteration has a total value of up to $10 billion over the next decade.

NASA staggered its SEWP V vendor and contract announcements. The Oct. 1 announcement covered two subcategories: Group A, for computer-based systems, and Group B, for networking, security, video and conference tools.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2014/10/nasa-awards-flurry-contracts-under-sewp-v/95705/

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