Army unveils draft for $10B software development competition
Gettyimages.com / Sergey Bitos
By
Ross Wilkers
The Army has doubled the maximum number of awardees from its prior intent and shed some more light on how the downselect could work.
The Army is now ready for industry to take a look at the service branch's plans for competing a multiple-award software development support services contract that is much larger in scope than originally communicated.
In May, the Army first touted the ceiling of its New Modern Software Development IDIQ vehicle as exceeding $1 billion over 10 years. Then in July, Army officials announced the ceiling will be $10 billion as per a quarterly presentation to industry available here via GovTribe.
A draft solicitation unveiled Friday sheds further light on the Army's plan to bring in a group of contractors that can perform on rapidly-awarded task orders as they are finalized.
The Army also is increasing the size of the pool it wants to hire, which now stands at a maximum of 20 compared to the original intent of no more than 10 awardees. Up to five of those 20 awards will be reserved for small businesses.
Customization appears to remain a key element of the Army's vision for this contract that emphasizes development practices such as DevSecOps, agile, lean and continuous integration/continuous delivery.
Army leaders plan to use a three-phase advisory downselect process for evaluating the proposals and informing bidders of their standing in terms of likeliness to advance further, but companies can continue on if they like their chances.
The draft RFP also describes how the Army would conduct an on-ramp process to bring more companies into the fold and establish a group of firms called "Awardable but Not Selected."
Contractors in the latter pool appear to be those that just missed the cut for an initial award and will be the first priority for selection in the on-ramp.
Off-ramps are also in the cards for this contract. The Army expects all holders of places on the contract to bid on one-fourth or more of the task orders, plus win one-fourth of the task orders they bid on.
Companies that do not do that will go on probation and can be off-ramped if they do not show improvement within 180 days of being put on notice.
Comments on the draft request for proposals are due by 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 6.