Navy delays 2018 NGEN award schedule

Award funds for the Navy's IT service contracts for Next Generation Enterprise Network Re-compete will be delayed at least five months due to a "sprint" roll out of a new contract development process, the Navy announced Sept. 20.

NGEN-R provides IT services for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps that support their respective intranets, the Marine Corps Enterprise Network, and the Navy Outside of the Continental United States' enterprise network.

The Navy has been looking for additional cost savings over the current single-provider $3.5 billion contract with Hewlett Packard Enterprise that expires next June.

The new NGEN-R contract has two components that are affected by the contract change: end user hardware, which includes hardware-as-a-service and hardware-for-purchase, and SMIT or Service Management, Integration, and Transport, which covers services for printing, software core building, customer support, and computer network defense.

The multibillion dollar end user hardware contract was originally scheduled for June 2018 but now will be awarded in November 2018. The SMIT contract is pushed to December 2018. Each contract could potentially go to a different vendor, in which case the two will have to work in concert to meet the Navy's needs.

FCW reached out to the Navy's Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems for comment on the funding gap between June, November and December but did not get an answer by the time of publication. A spokesman told FCW that the department is not answering questions regarding the delay at this time but will answer all questions at a future date to be determined.

The Navy provided few details on the new contract development process that sparked the schedule change, but said in a news release that it "includes significant interaction with industry through weekly industry conference calls, one-on-one industry question and answer sessions."

The Navy also said increasing interaction with industry through the new process like this "encourages and promotes industry input early on in the process to develop better acquisition documents for government and industry alike."