Army reopens ITES-2S
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After reviewing protests filed by losing bidders on the Army's recent Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 Services contracts, the Army has decided to re-evaluate all offers.
After reviewing protests filed by losing bidders on the Army's recent Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 Services contracts, the Army has decided to re-evaluate all offers.
'While the protests generally have no merit, we have concluded that it is necessary to re-evaluate information provided by some offerers pertaining to one of the evaluation subfactors,' Barbara J. Trujillo, the ITES-2S contracting officer, wrote earlier this month in a letter to Army trial attorney Karl M. Ellcessor. The re-evaluation 'could affect the award decision ultimately reached by the Source Selection Authority,' she wrote.
Trujillo said the existing awards will remain in place, though no work under them will be done, until the Army can reassess all offers and determine whether any new awards are warranted.
Five companies lodged protests with the Government Accountability Office, criticizing the Army for its award of the $20 billion ITES-2S contracts. Those companies were BAE Systems North America Inc. of Rockville, Md.; Multimax of Largo, Md.; NCI Information Systems of Reston, Va.; Northrop Grumman Corp.; and Pragmatics Inc. of McLean, Va.
In a follow-up letter, Ellcessor told David A. Ashen, GAO's deputy assistant general counsel, that the Army had determined that 'corrective action is appropriate.'
'This will require re-evaluation of offers and a reassessment of the comparative trade-off analysis for all offers,' Ellcessor wrote.
The Army awarded contracts to 11 companies'eight large and three small businesses'on April 14.
ITES-2S is a consolidated contract vehicle for products and services and serves as a follow-on to the original ITES-Enterprise Mission Support Services Solutions contracts.
Services under ITES-2S include business process re-engineering, information systems security, information assurance, IT services, network support, systems operations and maintenance, program management, enterprise design, integration and consolidation, and education and training.
The Army, Defense Department and other federal agencies are authorized to order off ITES-2S by issuing individual task orders.
The Army also plans to issue a request for proposals for its second round of ITES-Hardware contracts, which it hopes to award in August. The new ITES-2H contract vehicle will have a ceiling of $10 billion over 10 years.