The General Services Administration has announced the award
of six share-in-savings blanket purchase agreements, worth
up to $500 million each that it said could be used to launch
under-funded programs such as the Office of Personnel
anagement’s e-payroll, the Environmental Protection Agency’s
e-manifest, and system consolidation requirements at the
Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security.
Such agreements are designed to create incentive for contractors
to save money by allowing them to profit only from savings they
generate through presumably creative and efficient solutions.
They even go so far as to require contractors to finance some
or all of the initial investment to be recovered over time by
dipping into the benefit pool, said GSA.
It said a federal acquisition regulation rule proposed on July
2 establishes government-wide SiS implementation guidelines —
open for comment through August 31 — that include “a seven-
step process similar to the performance contract process;
references to the e-tools for business case development and
proposal evaluation and a focus on openness and collaboration.”
Agencies may conduct SiS procurements in-house or receive
support from GSA contracting officers, said GSA.
“The new Federal Acquisition Regulation rule and the
acquisition vehicles will be invaluable to agencies that
have struggled with how to conduct SiS procurements,” said
Office of Management and Budget official Karen Evans. “Having
the ability to access pre-qualified industry partners with
strong track records with SiS implementations will help
launch many under-funded programs, including some e-gov
initiatives.”
The awards, ending Sept. 30, 2005, were given to: Accenture
LLP of Hamilton, Bermuda; American Management Systems, Inc.
of Fairfax, Va.; Computer Sciences Corporation of Chantilly,
Va.; International Business Machines Corp. of Bethesda, Md.,
Science Applications International Corporation of Falls Church,
Va.; and, Systems Research and Applications Corp. of Fairfax,
Va.
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