GSA OASIS contract enters home stretch

The General Services Administration plans to release the draft request for proposals for a new professional services multiple-award contract at the end of November and post the final RFP in late March, an agency official said Oct. 25.

The One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services—better known as OASIS—will be the next-generation contract designed to address agencies’ needs for professional services requirements in areas such as management and consulting, professional engineering, logistics, and finance. It will also offer ancillary support services.

Todd Richards, acting deputy director of the OASIS program management office at GSA, said he plans to finalize the business case soon after the elections Nov. 6. A draft RFP could come out by the end of November.

“Please don’t worry. We’re not going to ruin anyone’s holiday season,” he said. “We will adjust accordingly, so no one is working on Christmas Eve or New Year’s—I won’t be around either.”

Resource:

OASIS Industry Community

Richards spoke at the Coalition for Government Procurement’s Fall Conference in Arlington, Va.

Richards said OASIS is aimed at meeting agencies’ complex requirements. He gave the example of agencies responding to national emergencies like Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. Even efforts to restructure or reorganize parts of an agency may require human capital management as well as IT management services as the project goes forward. Projects require various types of work, and OASIS will allow a simpler way of meeting all of the requirements.

“Again, this is the real world,” he said.

Agency officials would find it very complicated to purchase the management and ancillary support through GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules program, while multiple full-and-open competitions would be expensive. OASIS seeks to solve that dilemma.

“This is really what we’re trying to preach: solutions,” he said.

GSA recognized the need for professional services surrounded by complex circumstances as the government spent $79.9 billion in fiscal 2010 on professional services, and half of that spending went through cost-reimbursement contracts.

At the present stage of development, OASIS is likely to encompass numerous types of contracts, including fixed-price and time-and-materials. In addition, GSA will create an unrestricted OASIS contract and also OASIS Small Business, Richards said. To avoid leaving growing companies in the cold, officials will allow small firms that outgrow the small business size standards to transition to the unrestricted OASIS contract, if they meet certain qualifications, he said.