4 get high ranks in pre-bid evaluation for $430M FBI pact

Using past-performance evaluations, a General Services Administration contract office has identified four out of more than a dozen potential prime contractors that have the best chance of winning a $430 million systems integration deal at the FBI.

Lockheed Martin Information Systems, Raytheon Co., Science Applications International Corp. and Unisys Corp. are front-runners for the FBI Information Sharing Initiative, according to the Federal Computer Acquisition Center, which is managing the procurement.

The Information Sharing Initiative will make it possible for Justice Department bureaus to exchange digital fingerprints, electronic maps and charts, and other data as the bureaus carry out investigations.

The full solicitation is due May 29, and other vendors are not precluded from submitting a bid, Fedcac said.

About 100 vendors across 15 teams have expressed interest in the procurement, according to Fedcac. The contract shop conducted past-performance evaluations to determine which teams appeared to meet the requirements of the project at the start, rather than doing so after going through the proposal process, said Jeanne Davis, a Fedcac contracting officer.

"This was important not only to us but to industry," Davis said. "Industry wanted to know ahead of time what their chances were for success with this project."

Fedcac asked all primes to submit project summaries detailing how their teams matched the requirements in the forthcoming solicitation. For example, the vendors were required to describe their experience in such work as migrating mainframe applications to a client/server environment or building large, secure communications networks.

Additionally, Fedcac asked each vendor, whether a prime or a sub, to have other government customers fill out past-performance questionnaires.