ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. -- An Army Contracting Command-Rock Island team recently executed a unique acquisition strategy to meet a continually growing need for contractors supporting the sustainment of the Logistics Modernization Program, a computer-based system which integrates daily business processes in one accessible location.
The LMP currently serves over 21,000 users at over 50 Army and Department of Defense locations. It manages approximately $22 billion in inventory, and handles over 2 million transactions daily. The LMP also interfaces with more than 70 DoD systems with millions of inbound/outbound transactions processed on a weekly basis.
The LMP uses commercial off-the-shelf products from SAP, a software manufacturer and software-related services provider. These products deliver capabilities that streamline the business processes associated with the planning, acquisition, supply, maintenance, repair and overhaul of weapon systems, spare parts, and services to the warfighter. The LMP also provides management capability for the Army Working Capital Fund and addresses functionality in key Army business areas.
The Army Shared Services Center, headquartered at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, is ramping up an integrated workforce consisting of government civilians and augmenting support contractors, to sustain the LMP Deployed/Operational Production Baseline.
Historically, the LMP had been supported by a large contractor who designed, built, deployed and sustained the system. The Army projected the requirement would grow and result in three phases for a gradual transition back to the government. With the phased transition plan in mind, market research was conducted to gauge the interest and ability of small businesses in supporting the requirement.
In August 2013, an ACC-RI contracting officer participated in an Industry Day with the Product Manager LMP and Army-SSC for a requirement to provide up to 50 support contractors to help sustain the LMP for a period of two years. This event helped give industry an understanding of the direction the Army was going with sustainment of LMP and allowed the government to get an insight into how industry can support the requirement.
In the subsequent months, the ACC-RI contracting team worked with Product Manager LMP and Army-SSC to define the requirement in an acquisition requirements package and establish the best value criteria for a small business set aside task order competition. By November 2013, a request for task order proposal was issued to a pool of contractors on a small business multiple award indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity contract that already supported Army systems.
Due to delays in the acquisition, the request was cancelled in 2014; however the requirement did not cease. Instead, the Army was faced with an even greater challenge of transitioning the requirement to the Army-SSC at a quicker pace.
The ACC-RI contracting team worked with Product Manager LMP and the Army-SSC to develop a new requirement package for up to 161 support contractors to augment the center in sustaining the LMP. An acquisition strategy was developed which would solicit the pool of contractors under the original small business multiple-award IDIQ contract.
"This was a complex requirement that was truly successful through the collaboration between our internal support -- including our policy, pricing and legal staffs -- and our external stakeholders, the LMP Program Office and the Army Shared Services Center," said Jeremy Miller, chief, Information Technology Division, ACC-RI. "By working together and effectively communicating, we were able to achieve the collective goal."
The strategy was based on the assumption that if the new requirement was divided among the pool of small businesses IDIQ holders, the effect would be the same as soliciting for each of the phases incrementally. Additionally, by splitting the award, the requirement was broken into increments that would still be supportable by small businesses and would also mitigate the risk of a single contractor supporting the requirement.
The second request for task order proposal for the new, combined requirement was issued in December 2014 and an award was made by ACC-RI in June 2015 to three small businesses on the multiple-award IDIQ: InSap Services, Inc.; Oakland Consulting Group, Inc.; and Attain, LLC.
"The bottom line is that this innovative contract strategy allows the government more control and agility in managing the LMP, as well as provides cost effectiveness through the use of its small business partners," said Lt. Col. Rob Williams, Product Manager LMP. "These awards will help deliver effective and efficient sustainment to LMP users for many years to come, while supporting the DoD's Better Buying Power initiative to 'do more without more'."
Social Sharing