JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (March 19, 2020) -- Members of the Mission and Installation Contracting Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were among the contracting professionals seeing firsthand changes coming to the acquisition community during a March 4 demonstration of the Army Contract Writing System.
ACWS will serve as the Army's single enterprise writing and management system, replacing two outdated systems that manage billions in contracted goods and services.
The two-part demonstration offered an introduction to the web-based contract management system by product managers with the General fund enterprise Business System and ACWS offices for civilian employees and uniformed members from a variety of acquisition offices in the area.
“The demonstration was thorough and provided great insight into the future, and the MICC workforce was excited to finally see the product,” said Lt. Col. Haneda Garner, the director of contracting responsible for five installations and other mission partners in the National Capital Region.
The training opportunity also served as a forum for gathering feedback as part of a listening session.
“The listening session was a small group discussion during which the program manager and IT consulting team sought feedback from the MICC-Fort Belvoir workforce,” Garner said.
Leading the Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems demonstration were Reginald Shuford, acting product manager, and Al Wilder, product support manager. Army PEO EIS is responsible for the Army’s IT network and business systems. Its portfolio consists of 37 program offices and more than 70 acquisition programs supporting Army and DOD communications, logistics, medical, finance, personnel, training and procurement operations around the world.
In addition to MICC-Fort Belvoir, participating in the demonstration were members from the Office of Deputy Assistant Sectary of the Army for Procurement and Army Test and Evaluation Command. Discussion between product managers and those in attendance included systems interface, process changes in creating files, drag-and-drop functionality, contract line item development, solicitation building, and signature functionality for contracting officers and contractors.
Initially anticipated to be deployed by the MICC in June, the ACWS pilot has shifted approximately 90 days as PEO EIS continues to conduct listening sessions and address questions related to the complex interfaces of the system. Deployment is now expected to be this fall following senior leader briefings and approvals.
About the MICC:
Headquartered at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the Mission and Installation Contracting Command consists of about 1,500 military and civilian members who are responsible for contracting goods and services in support of Soldiers as well as readying trained contracting units for the operating force and contingency environment when called upon. MICC contracts are vital in feeding more than 200,000 Soldiers every day, providing many daily base operations support services at installations, facilitate training in the preparation of more than 100,000 conventional force members annually, training more than 500,000 students each year, and maintaining more than 14.4 million acres of land and 170,000 structures.
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