solicitation | The Contracting Education Academy

September 2, 2020 By cs

Pentagon plans single-award $11 billion IT contract

The Defense Enclave Services contract could go out for bid as soon as late September.

Despite significant delays to two large, single-award contracts, the Defense Department plans to bid out the next major multibillion IT contract next month.

According to procurement documents, the Defense Enclave Services contract will be a single-award contract valued at up to $11.7 billion over 10 years, with a four-year base period and three two-year options. Through it, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Department’s IT arm, seeks to acquire “common use IT systems,” including infrastructure, network operations and cybersecurity support services while it integrates and consolidates the Pentagon’s “fourth estate” agencies.

“As threats within the cyberspace domain become increasingly sophisticated, DoD is looking for solutions to eliminate unnecessary complexity within the IT space,” according to slides shared with vendors last month during a virtual industry day.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2020/08/pentagon-plans-single-award-11b-it-contract/168050/

September 1, 2020 By cs

GSA imagines new small business GWAC

The General Services Administration gave the public a look at its next step in developing the agency’s new small business governmentwide contracting (GWAC) vehicle that will eventually replace the canceled Alliant 2 Small Business contract.

The new vehicle will emphasize Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) and woman-owned small business set-asides, streamlined pricing and contract submission processes, as well as a source for emerging artificial intelligence, machine learning, as-a-service offerings, cloud and edge computing technologies, as well as cybersecurity technology, according to GSA officials.

In an Aug. 27 webcast, GSA small business and IT category officials gave a loose outline of how they see the agency’s next-generation small business contract will develop in the coming months. They asked for industry input on how to maximize technologies, processes and ease-of-use for the new GWAC.

The agency anticipates issuing a draft solicitation “by the end of the year,” said Lee Tittle, program lead for small business GWACs in GSA’s Office of IT Category (OITC). To accommodate industry input and disseminate information on the effort, GSA opened a new category on its Interact online community.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2020/08/27/rockwell-gsa-new-gwac-smal-biz.aspx

March 3, 2020 By cs

Overstock.com protest could delay GSA commercial e-marketplace pilots until April or beyond

The General Services Administration (GSA) recently responded to an Overstock.com protest of the agency’s commercial e-marketplace solicitation, which could delay pilots until April — assuming revisions aren’t ordered.

Overstock filed its pre-award bid protest with the Government Accountability Office on Jan. 15 arguing some of the solicitation’s terms are ambiguous and restrict competition. The internet retailer further argued GSA didn’t allow sufficient time for companies to respond, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Overstock had until Feb. 24 to respond to GSA’s agency report based on anything it learns. The protest itself is covered by a protective order limiting disclosure to lawyers for the private parties.

Section 846 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act directed GSA to work with nontraditional government contractors on allowing agencies to purchase up to $250,000 — the simplified acquisition threshold — in commercial items. GSA’s initial pilot will focus on e-marketplaces like Amazon or Overstock, where competition between sellers occurs at the item level.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/overstock-gsa-e-marketplace-protest/

February 25, 2020 By cs

Contractor successfully uses GAO pre-award protest to modify solicitation

When the terms of a solicitation run contrary to the regulations, challenging the solicitation in a pre-award protest may provide contractors the chance to shift the tide in their favor before bids are submitted and an award is made.

In January 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained a pre-award bid protest brought by Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc. that challenged the terms of a General Services Administration (GSA) solicitation. Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc., B-418141, 2020 WL 289546 (Jan. 16, 2020). Noble Supply argued the RFQ’s price evaluation methodology, as written, failed to provide for an evaluation of which offeror presented the best value and the lowest overall cost alternative, in violation of FAR part 8.

In the RFQ, GSA asked holders of GSA 51V Hardware Superstore Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts to bid on four blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) to provide hardware products and services to four military branches. For its price evaluation factor, the RFQ stated that GSA would evaluate price quotations “to ensure that offered pricing, to include flat rates and tiered volume discounts, is fair and reasonable.” The RFQ then stated that GSA would not evaluate whether the award was the “lowest-priced technically acceptable” (LPTA), nor would it conduct a “best value tradeoff source selection methodology.” Thus, GSA would only evaluate the quotes for price reasonableness to determine whether prices were unreasonably high.

Noble Supply argued that this price methodology was contrary to 41 U.S.C. sections 152, 8.404(d) and 8.405-3(a), which require GSA to award BPAs to the awardee that provides the “best value and results in the lowest overall cost alternative.” GAO agreed, explaining that “consideration of the lowest cost is an imperative when using the FSS” and therefore GSA is required to “reach a determination regarding which FSS vendor meets the agency’s needs at the lowest overall cost.” Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc., B-418141, 2020 WL 289546, at *6 (Jan. 16, 2020).

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/Article/891604

January 15, 2020 By cs

GSA reissues e-commerce platform solicitation with significant changes

After an extended bid period and a short-lived protest, the General Services Administration (GSA) has re-released the request for proposals for an e-commerce platform with some significant changes.

However, vendors that didn’t bid on the original proposal won’t get another chance this time around.

The government buyers at GSA want federal employees to be able to purchase standard goods through a digital platform, similar to e-commerce platforms like Amazon. For the last few years, the agency has been working on a solicitation for just such a platform and released an RFP in October for “online e-marketplace platforms [that] feature multiple suppliers offering the same product and will allow buyers to decide which supplier/product combination meets their needs.”

The first instance of this platform will be a three-year, multiple-award pilot to test the marketplace idea. Once up and running, agencies will be able to purchase products directly through the portal for any transactions under the micropurchase threshold of $10,000.

After bids were submitted in mid-November, GSA received a protest of the solicitation, prompting the agency to pull it back and rework the RFP. The agency reissued the solicitation on Jan. 8, with revised bids due Jan. 15.

The revised solicitation includes several changes. The most important is the insertion of language in two places requiring bidders to provide a full, working solution rather than one developed in conjunction with GSA.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/01/gsa-reissues-e-commerce-platform-solicitation-significant-changes/162374/

The Defense Enclave Services contract could go out for bid as soon as late September.

The General Services Administration gave the public a look at its next step in developing the agency’s new small business governmentwide contracting (GWAC) vehicle that will eventually replace the canceled Alliant 2 Small Business contract.

The General Services Administration (GSA) recently responded to an Overstock.com protest of the agency’s commercial e-marketplace solicitation, which could delay pilots until April — assuming revisions aren’t ordered.

When the terms of a solicitation run contrary to the regulations, challenging the solicitation in a pre-award protest may provide contractors the chance to shift the tide in their favor before bids are submitted and an award is made.

After an extended bid period and a short-lived protest, the General Services Administration (GSA) has re-released the request for proposals for an e-commerce platform with some significant changes.

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