Acquisition & Procurement

The Defense Information Systems Agency has started adopting the “other transaction authority” as a contracting method to facilitate the acquisition process and speed up the delivery of new technology platforms designed to meet warfighters’ requirements. “Many of the companies we’re dealing with are small start-ups,” Scott Stewart, technical director at …

An advisory group that Congress created through the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act has issued a report that calls for the Defense Department to transition from a program-focused management structure to an “enterprise capability portfolio management” framework in order to improve the acquisition system, National Defense reported Thursday. The Section 809 …

Cerner CEO Zane Burke told lawmakers on June 26 that the annual maintenance and operating cost of the electronic health record system his company is providing the Veterans Affairs Department would be lower than that of the existing system’s, which flies north of $1 billion, FCW reported Wednesday. Health information …

Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr., military deputy at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, last week affirmed the service’s commitment to speeding up the procurement process for space technologies in response to criticism from the chairman of the House Armed Services …

The U.S. Air Force expects to award an UH-1N Huey replacement contract later this year and aims to deliver new utility helicopters to multiple bases in the 2020-2032 time frame. USAF said Wednesday it will buy aircraft designed to support nuclear deterrence, test and training, continuation of government operations and survival school support operations. The service branch …

Shay Assad, director of pricing, procurement and acquisition policy at the Defense Department, recently said that the agency will soon release a new policy that would help reduce the lead time for major procurements, Federal News Radio reported Thursday. Under the new policy, which would apply specifically to sole-source acquisitions, …

The General Services Administration has sought information from industry as part of the second phase of a program to establish an e-commerce platform that federal agencies can use to buy commercial products and services. GSA issued a request for information on Friday asking e-commerce platform providers to share their data standards; …

The General Services Administration now expects the unrestricted track of a potential 10-year, $50 billion governmentwide acquisition contract for information technology products and services to take effect on July 1 after GSA won in protests that reached the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. GSA said Tuesday the Alliant 2 unrestricted GWAC …

Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Defense Department, said at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference held Thursday that DoD should reform its acquisition process for information technology modernization programs, Federal News Radio reported Friday. In line with this, Lord said that she and her staff develop acquisition …

The Government Accountability Office has found through a study that there are still a number of actions the government has to take in order to improve the management of information technology procurement. These actions encompass further review of chief information officer responsibilities, IT contract approval, data center consolidation, software license management and security …