The Department of Homeland Security and the General Services Administration have launched efforts to advance the use of “commercial solutions opening†method to speed up the acquisition of innovative platforms and services, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.DHS released in June its guidelines for the CSO contracting method, while GSA unveiled in May the AAS Express program to provide agencies using the procedure access to GSA contracts and resources.
The Defense Department has recently joined GSA and DHS in the adoption of the CSO method by launching a four-year pilot program that will run through Sept. 30, 2022.
DoD issued in June a class deviation document that would direct contracting officers to issue “general solicitations†and competitively choose proposals based on a peer-review process as part of the CSO procedure authorized in the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.
