Acquisition

This week on Off the Shelf, the Booz Allen Hamilton Immersive Technologies team joins host Roger Waldron to explain how technological advances in virtual and augmented reality are changing the way the Department of Defense trains, plans and executes.

Agencies expected to award 58 task orders under the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract by March 31, but instead awarded 10, putting the $50 billion program on a path similar to the last telecommunications transition debacle.

The House Armed Services Committee’s ranking member says previous reform efforts have told DoD to pay more attention to sustainment costs, but only for individual weapons systems.

For details, Bloomberg Government Director of Contracts Dan Snyder joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Five of the nine EIS vendors raised concerns about the delays in releasing task orders under EIS, about what the solicitations are asking for and the quality of the requirements detailed in the documents saying the transition is taking on too much of a Networx-like flavor.

The Space Acquisition Council will have its first meeting in April

The Defense Department signed its agreement with the CMMC Accreditation Board, kicking off the training for third-party assessors and the release of the necessary documents to help vendors prepare to meet the standards.

The bill also gives more money to the National Guard for emergency deployments.

DoD is trying to keep companies afloat as it calls on them for Defense Production Act needs.

AWS objection argues DoD’s corrective action plan doesn’t go far enough, and that it should be forced to reopen and reconsider multiple aspects of the contract.

For the first time in seven years, the Office of Management and Budget is revamping the regulations that govern the federal grant making process based on changes in legislation and those requested by the grants community.

The Office Management and Budget released FAQs for agencies and contractors to deal with coronavirus while DoD released a memo detailing what essential vendors mean for them.

The Defense Department raised its threshold for 8(a) sole source contracts to $100 million as required by the 2020 Defense authorization bill. While not related to coronavirus outbreak, the timing is important.

Contractors might be asked to do extra work during the coronavirus and as agency’s scramble to keep operating.