GSA Awards $24 million Contract To Global Computer Enterprises for Federal Procurement Data System Next Generation

GSA # 10011

May 2, 2003
Contact: Eleni Martin (202) 501-1231
eleni.martin@gsa.gov

WASHINGTON - The U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Office of Governmentwide Policy announced a contract award for the design, development, and operation and maintenance of the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) to Global Computer Enterprises, Inc. (GCE), a small business in Gaithersburg, MD.

"The FPDS-NG reengineering effort is a critical e-government initiative because the award data that it collects helps Congress and the public understand how the Government spends taxpayer funds," said David Drabkin, Deputy Associate Administrator for Acquisition Policy. Benefits of FPDS-NG will be seen in fiscal year 2004 with improvements occurring over several years as Government agencies transition to the new capabilities. The award was for development and up to 7 years of operations and maintenance and has a maximum value of more than $24,000,000.

The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) is the Federal Government's central database of information about its procurement contracts. Executive Branch agencies (cabinet level departments, independent agencies, and smaller boards and bureaus) have been reporting selected data about contracts since 1979. This award will result in the first major design change in FPDS since inception. GSA's Federal Procurement Data Center (http://www.fpdc.gov) operates the FPDS on behalf of the entire government.

GCE will make FPDS-NG more responsive to the needs of customers through availability of "real time" on-line reports, collection of additional data for better management and support for the small business community, and incorporation of new technologies that enable contracting agencies to reduce the burden of submitting the required data. Program goals include:

Support President Bush's electronic government initiatives as part of the Automated Acquisition Environment project (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/);
Reduce the time required for data collection from months to days;
Collect specific data about 13 million procurements valued at more than $2,500;
Significantly reduce the cost to collect the data from $20 million/year;
Provide public web access to all the data in "real time"; and
Accomplish all program objectives using standard Internet technologies including XML web services.

The time and cost savings will be achieved by using new technologies to collect data directly from the contract writing systems increasingly used throughout the Federal Government to support contracting activities. This electronic interoperability will also allow contracting agencies to reduce or eliminate some of the manual processes required to collect and summarize information about the millions of smaller procurements.

GCE (www.gce2000.com) is a small business that specializes in large-scale systems integration using Oracle, JAVA, and XML technologies. GCE will be responsible for developing and maintaining the system including application hosting, reporting functionality using the latest OLAP and data mining technologies, help desk operations, real time interoperability with agency procurement systems, and creation of many web services.

The request for proposals was issued October 29, 2002, and 29 firms submitted proposals. GCE was selected primarily for the technical quality and completeness of its proposed solution. GCE brought to GSA a live prototype that demonstrated an intimate knowledge of the requirements, implementation of many of the proposed features, and a level of flexibility unmet by other proposals.

The contract award is for $9,752,961 for development and an initial two-year period of operations and maintenance with incentives for early delivery of the system. During operations and maintenance, GCE can earn up to five (5) one-year extensions for excellent performance. The ultimate contract value is up to $24,386,933. In addition, the contract provides for task order support that agencies may use for updating their systems to use the new capabilities.

GSA is a centralized federal procurement and property management agency created by Congress to improve government efficiency and help federal agencies better serve the public. It acquires, on behalf of federal agencies, office space, equipment, telecommunications, information technology, supplies, and services. GSA, comprised of 14,000 associates, provides services and solutions for the office operations of over 1 million federal workers located in 8,300 government-owned and leased buildings in 1,600 U.S. communities.