NITAAC Industry Advisory Council (IAC) Meeting

Thursday August 17, 2006

Bldg. 6100 Executive Blvd., Rockville, MD

Conference Room 6D01

10:00 P.M. – 11:30 P.M.

 

 

Attendees:

 

Diane Frasier, NIH, IAC Co-Chair

Victor Powers, NITAAC Program Director, powersv@od.nih.gov

Rusty Wall, CSC, IAC Co-Chair, rwall@csc.com

Donald Wilson, CO, NITAAC

Wanda Russell, CO, NITAAC

Millicent Manning, CO, NITAAC

Cheryl Brown, CTS, NITAAC New Business Support

Bob Gober, CTS, NITAAC New Business Support

Dennis Dietrich, IAC, BearingPoint

Debbie Rieger, IAC, A-TEK

Cindy Kendall, SAIC, IAC

Jim Terry, IAC, Ecompex

 

The Thursday, August 17, 2006 Meeting Minutes Follow:

è   Opening Remarks                                                                          Ms. Diane J. Frasier,
                                                                           Acting ADA, Head of Contracting Activity

                                   Director, Office of Acquisition Management and Policy, OA, OM

 

Diane Frasier welcomed everyone and kicked the meeting off. 

è   NITAAC Executive Agent Designation Renewal                      Mr. Victor E. Powers,
Granted by OMB                                                                       NITAAC Program Director

Diane Frasier and Victor Powers both addressed the renewal of Executive Agency status to the Director of NIH to serve as an executive agent for government-wide acquisition of information technology services and products under the CIO-SP2i contract, the Image World 2nd contract, and the ECS III contract.  Diane Frasier congratulated Victor Powers and his staff on the excellent job they had done obtaining this renewal, and acknowledged all the additional effort they made in preparation for and in providing additional data during the OMB reviews. The IAC members also congratulated Victor Powers and his staff.

In his letter, the Director, OMB addressed the additional reviews that are on-going and the potential changes contemplated for GWACs and other interagency contracts.  He also stated that OMB is currently reviewing how the governance structure for creating and renewing interagency contracts can be improved and that OMB will carefully consider the forthcoming recommendations on this issue made by the Acquisition Advisory Panel.  (Please click on OMB letter for a copy of the letter from the Director.)

 

è   Discussion of Proposed Agenda Items for the upcoming NITAAC Business Meeting (tentatively scheduled for October 2006)

Victor Powers proposed a draft business meeting agenda and requested discussion inputs from the IAC. All agreed that having a Keynote speaker address the potential topics would spark additional interest in the meeting.  (For a copy of the first draft of the NITAAC Vendor Business Meeting agenda presented at the IAC Meeting please click here - comments /suggestions are welcome).

All NITAAC Contractor Primes are solicited to suggest agenda items for the business meeting.

 è  NITAAC Outreach and Education Team

      NITAAC’s Outreach/Upcoming Shows                                 Ms. Cheryl Brown, CTS,
and Marketing Programs                                  NITAAC Outreach and Education Team

Cheryl Brown briefed the IAC on four initiatives going on in support of NITAAC’s Outreach and Education Program:

   Plans for an upcoming NITAAC Webinar featuring a presentation on the Federal Acquisition Environment by former OMB director of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy under President Clinton, Dr. Steve Kellman.

   NITAAC’s Learning Center Update and status of NITAAC’s upcoming newsletter. (To view a screenshot of the draft homepage please click here.)

   Upcoming AFCEA Show where NITAAC will have a booth at the Land War Net Conference (formerly DOIM/AKM) from August 22—24, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  (Click on Booth plans for details.)

   The third Annual itsGov/NITAAC Pavilion and Vendor Participation (July 26)—Post Evaluation

è   Discussion/Status of IAC Subcommittees’ Agenda Items              Mr. Rusty Wall

The subcommittees did not present at the August IAC Meeting.

è   Report on NITAAC Contract Performance                                    Ms. Wanda Russell
as of August 2006                                                                             Mr. Donald Wilson
                                                                                                        Ms. Millicent Manning

                                                                       Senior Contracting Officers, NITAAC

ECS III has an inception to date total of 59,414 orders for a total value of $1.2B.

IW2nd has 462 Delivery Orders with a value of $71M and 42 Task Orders valued at $17.2 in initial award value (w/ options $13M additional).

CIO-SP2i now has 448 awarded Task Orders with a base year value of $1.4B and an option year value of $5.7B if all options are exercised.

è   EAGLE Contract Awards (other MACs)

Rusty Wall IAC Co-Chair/CSC provided the IAC with a short summary of the newly awarded (so far only to the large business bidders) DHS Eagle ID/IQ contract available to its agencies.  Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions (EAGLE) is a multiple-award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle, specifically designed as the preferred source of information technology (IT) services for the majority of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) enterprise infrastructure and initiatives. EAGLE provides a wide range of IT services in support of the IT solutions requirements of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) within the DHS. There are two groups of prime contractors under the EAGLE contract: 1) small businesses, eligible to compete for all task orders; and (2) large businesses, eligible to compete only on solicitations issued on an unrestricted basis in the following five comprehensive functional categories (FCs) of service under EAGLE:

• FC1 – Infrastructure Engineering Design, Development, Implementation and Integration

• FC2 – Operations and Maintenance

• FC3 – Independent Test, Validation, Verification, and Evaluation

• FC4 – Software Development

• FC5 – Management Support Services

The discussion included the differences between a formal OMB Designated GWAC that is exempt from the Economy Act, a MAC run under a “franchise fund”, and an Agency–specific ID/IQ contract that is not exempt by the Economy Act.

The three GWACs run by NITAAC under the just renewed OMB Executive Agency Designation are:

   Fast, Easy and Convenient for the customer

   Low contract access fees

   Solution based contracts

   Non-protestable task orders

   Dual levels of competition

   Pre-qualified pool of contractors

   Section 803 met through fair opportunity

   Worldwide coverage

   Flexibility in adding subcontractors and teaming arrangements

   Full spectrum of contract types

   Availability to all federal agencies

   Exempt from the Economy Act

è   GSA’s New Approach to GWACs—Industry’s Perspective Open Discussion
and Overall Impact

The IAC had a spirited discussion concerning the current Federal acquisition environment including a mutual awareness that increased oversight by OMB and governance by NITAAC were a natural expectation in view of current events.

è   Open Discussion/Potential Agenda Items for the Next Meeting

The next IAC Meeting will be held on Thursday, September 21, 2006 from
10:00 A.M.–11:30 A.M.

The IAC will, at a minimum, discuss the final agenda for the NITAAC Vendors Business Meeting, planned webinar, and the subcommittee minutes as presented by each Subcommittee Chairperson, and the ongoing efforts of the NITAAC Outreach and Education Team at our next meeting.

In preparation for the Vendors Business Meeting, all NITAAC Contractor Primes should be solicited to suggest agenda items for the business meeting.

The agenda for the Vendors Business Meeting would include items specific to each individual NITAAC contract (CIO-SP2i, IW2nd, and ECS III).

There will also be agenda items common to all three contracts.  These will include contract changes resulting from OMB mandates to NIH/NITAAC on its GWACs such as: contract modifications on EVMS reporting, HSPD-12, or on other Federal acquisition environment changes mandating unilateral modifications on the current contracts.

There was discussion concerning inviting a keynote guest speaker to address the group on a topic of interest to all.  All agreed that having a guest speaker was a potential draw to the meeting.

Your input is requested on any new agenda items for the next IAC meeting, and for the next NITAAC business meeting in October.  Please propose any desired agenda items or your desire to participate on the IAC Subcommittees as a new member.

You may send your input to

Rusty Wall, rwall@csc.com or

Victor Powers, powersv@od.nih.gov.

 

è   Download Viewers

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Please note the next IAC Meeting will be on the third Thursday in September

Thursday, September 21, 2006 from 10:00 A.M.–11:30 A.M. 

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