ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Illinois (March 6, 2023) – Army Contracting Command-Rock Island’s Power Projection and Base Readiness Directorate OCONUS Division has been instrumental in making the Army Prepositioned Stock mission’s transition from the Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise EAGLE Program, known as EAGLE, to the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, known as LOGCAP, as smooth as possible through their work with industry and the Army Sustainment Command.
The APS mission strategically places sets of equipment in five areas of the world: the United States (APS-1), Europe (APS-2), Afloat (APS-3), Northeast Asia (APS-4) and Southwest Asia (APS-5). Having this equipment staged and ready to use reduces deployment response times, allowing Soldiers to arrive on the ground ready to fight.
Historically, the EAGLE contracting vehicle has been utilized to procure the services necessary to execute the APS mission. Due to the Army’s changes in the operational environment, the decision was made to transition the mission to LOGCAP as it has a broader scope of services and the ability to support contingency and named operations, which EAGLE cannot do without high-level contracting authority approvals.
Danielle Gainey, branch chief, said that the concept of moving APS from EAGLE to LOGCAP was not new, rather ASC saw an opportunity to make the transition, albeit with a window of opportunity that was smaller than what would have been ideal.
In conjunction with ASC, ACC-RI developed a very expedited transition timeline ensuring with the goal to maintain mission success and minimize the need for bridge contracts for existing APS sites.
Maj. Raven Donelson, contracting officer, said the team had about a year to complete the transition from when the decision was originally made to move forward in this direction.
“The decision was made around August of 2022 with a goal to get this in place by the summer of 2023, which is a pretty short turn-around especially for something this large in terms of locations,” said Donelson.
One key factor that aids in a seamless transition is that all the LOGCAP prime contractors are also represented under the EAGLE Basic Ordering Agreement contractor pool.
“The actual operating contractors will have the opportunity to compete for future APS work under LOGCAP,” said Gainey. “The Army Sustainment Command in conjunction with ACC-Rock Island has developed a transition plan where each APS site will transition at a different time than the others to ensure that there is not a loss in mission operability when or if a new contractor comes in.”
Gainey stated that the requirements that were previously procured under EAGLE will now be procured under LOGCAP, so there is not an associated cost with the change.
Gainey also said that the APS mission is co-located in multiple areas of responsibilities of Combatant Commands and this initiative will help meet the Army’s goals of utilizing its established strategic resources as well as minimize overlap within theaters for services being provided.
“By transitioning the APS mission set to the LOGCAP contracting vehicle, in a few years that will allow the Army to have a single prime contractor operating all things LOGCAP to include the APS mission within the particular COCOM,” said Gainey.
Gainey acknowledges that industry has been receptive to the Army’s overall intent to transition the mission to LOGCAP because they agree that it will offer some efficiencies in operations within theaters and COCOMs.
A challenge that Gainey believes the team faced was educating Army senior leaders on the benefits of transitioning the procurement vehicle from EAGLE to LOGCAP now, versus at a later date.
“The Army held an industry day with the LOGCAP prime contractors to have open forum discussions on industry concerns with the transition, as well as provide the government’s intent with the transition,” said Gainey. “That presented challenges in itself with respect to making sure that we are not oversharing information with industry, but at the same time, we are listening to industry’s concerns and incorporating them into the procurement strategy going forward.”
Donelson also stated that in addition to the industry day that took place in October, ASC, ACC-RI and LOGCAP prime contractors have conducted site visits at each of the site locations. The intent of these visits was to address questions from industry as well as to allow all industry partners to look at the sites and see what condition they are in.
The team is currently working with pricing and technical personnel on responding to questions that have come in from a recently released draft solicitation, as well as questions from the site visits.
“We will be conducting bi-weekly Integrated Process Reviews with the contractors to give them those answers,” said Donelson. “If the contractors have other questions or require any other information, we want to keep them informed of the timelines and milestones as they shift due to the size and complexity of the procurement.”
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