Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

DHS tests AI for making sense of contractor past-performance data

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The Department of Homeland Security is almost done with the first phase of a project that will allow federal agencies to use artificial intelligence for a task that can be overwhelming for humans: extracting, analyzing and visualizing the underutilized data in the governmentwide system for contractor past-performance records.

Next week DHS will finish reviewing services from nine vendors who were given data sets from the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS).  Before awarding contracts worth more than $250,000, agencies review historical data in the CPARS to see how offerers acted under previous agreements.  It’s not an easy task.

With more than 1 million records covering 60,000 contractors, CPARS can bog down contracting officers, said Polly Hall, acquisition innovation advocate director of the Procurement Innovation Lab at DHS.  They can sort records by contract value, Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number or performance period, but even once those filters are applied, the results frequently still number in the hundreds and can only be viewed PDF at a time.

Continue reading at:  Fedscoop

Georgia Tech Applied Research will support DHS information safeguarding effort

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) awarded a $704,000 research-and-development (R&D) contract to Atlanta-based Georgia Tech Applied Research Center (GTARC) to support trustmark framework efforts to aid the public safety community’s information sharing and safeguarding capabilities, DHS reported.  The GTARC R&D project will specifically address the lack of mature software tools to support the trustmark framework’s primary use-cases, such as emergency communications interoperability.  GTARC will upgrade the trustmark framework’s Federated Identity, Credential and Access Management (Federal ICAM) capability, in order to help advance public safety information sharing and safeguarding capabilities communications across agency boundaries.

Continue reading at:  SIGNAL magazine

GAO denies protest to LPTA solicitation ridden with cost uncertainty and local zoning code conflicts

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Federal agencies have long been afforded wide discretion in defining solicitation requirements to meet their contracting needs.  But are a solicitation’s requirements acceptable even where they’re likely to conflict with local zoning codes?  What about where the solicitation documents conflict with one another on whether certain requirements are considered “requirements” at all?  And finally, is an LPTA procurement acceptable where such conflicts have undoubtedly led to price uncertainty among the bidders?

GAO says, “yes” to all of these, so long as the requirements meet the agency’s needs.

In Flaherty Family Trust, B-414563.3 (Aug. 16, 2018), GSA issued an RLP seeking to lease a “professional” office space location for the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Customs and Border Protection port in Savannah, Georgia. GSA anticipated award to the lowest-price technically-acceptable offeror.  The main RLP contained general internal space qualifications. But a separate “Agency Special Requirements” document provided specialized usage and internal space specifications that were inconsistent with the main solicitation. The RLP also required 44 government parking spaces with an additional 96 public-parking spaces within a quarter mile. But these parking specifications did not comply with local county zoning codes for majority of potential office locations.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-denies-protest-to-lpta-solicitation-ridden-with-cost-uncertainty-and-local-zoning-code-conflicts/ 

DHS pauses most contracting deadlines until after shutdown ends

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The Homeland Security Department’s top procurement official issued a special notice extending due dates for all unamended acquisition deadlines after Dec. 22, the day the department ran out of funding and shut down.

“Given the lapse in funding, there are significant limitations as to the number of employees and the type of work that may continue to be performed in a lapse status,” Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa wrote in a special notice to contractors posted Wednesday to FedBizOpps.

The notice gives vendors up to seven days after the shutdown resolves to submit bid proposals if the deadline passes before the department reopens.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/01/dhs-pauses-most-contracting-deadlines-until-after-shutdown-ends/154305/

Government shutdown costing private-sector contractors $245 million every day

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As it rounds up its third week, the partial government shutdown isn’t only affecting hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Contractors are potentially losing out on $245 million each day the shutdown continues, Bloomberg estimates.

Private-sector organizations that serve federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Agency for International Development and the Environmental Protection Agency have been told to stop work on certain contracts, with little indication as to what happens next, the Washington Post reports.

Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) last week posted a “blanket” stop work order affecting scores of open contracts, the Post reports. “Any work done after receipt of this notice is at your own risk and will not be reimbursed,” Bobby McCane, FEMA’s head of contracting activity, wrote to federal contractors. “I thank you for your assistance during this funding lapse.”

Keep reading this article at: http://fortune.com/2019/01/07/u-s-government-shutdown-private-sector/

Defense companies starting to feel effect of the shutdown

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As the partial government shutdown moves into its third week, some American defense firms are starting to get multi-million-dollar IOUs instead of payments.

Even though Pentagon projects are unaffected — the Defense Department is already funded for fiscal 2019 — the shutdown is squeezing contractors who do work for NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and other federal agencies. Many companies aren’t getting paid, even as they continue to pay the salaries of employees shut out of closed government offices.

Take SAIC and Engility, two of the government’s largest service contractors. Executives for the soon-to-merge companies say the payroll for workers idled by the shutdown comes to $10 million every week. And just three weeks into the freeze, they say, the government is some $40 million to $50 million behind in payments.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2019/01/defense-companies-starting-feel-effect-us-government-shutdown/154002

10 problems DHS wants innovative small businesses to solve in 2019

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The Homeland Security Department released a list of 10 bleeding-edge research areas it plans to pursue in fiscal 2019 in partnership with innovative small businesses.

The department’s Science and Technology Directorate and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office announced Friday the tentative list of technical areas for this year’s Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR, program. In the coming year, Homeland Security SBIR officials are proposing research into topics including using drones to detect radiological threats, sharing cyber threat data, using blockchain for forensic analysis, and advanced identity management—from DNA to cyberspace.

“The SBIR program provides an opportunity for innovative small businesses to find solutions that meet the technology needs of the department’s operational components and the nation’s first responders,” William Bryan, senior official performing the duties of the undersecretary for science and technology, said in the announcement.

Homeland Security’s SBIR program obligated almost $250 million across 805 awards from its start in 2004 through 2015, the latest year with data available on the SBIR.gov dashboard. The program hit its height in 2006 with almost $29.9 million in funds obligated to 95 projects.

In 2015, Homeland Security’s program obligated $20.7 million to 48 projects. This amount is relatively small when compared to the largest SBIR awarders that year: the Energy Department at $193.6 million, Health and Human Services at $714.4 million and the Defense Department at $956.9 million.

The list for 2019 includes eight topics under the Science and Technology Directorate and two more under the CWMD office’s program.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2018/12/10-problems-dhs-wants-innovative-small-businesses-solve-2019/153230/

DHS would get more power to bar risky contractors under dueling proposals

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Two House Republicans are working on legislation that would expand the Homeland Security Department’s authority to deny contracts to companies that pose cybersecurity supply chain threats while the Trump administration is pushing an even more expansive proposal.

The bill in the House will be modeled on authorities Congress gave the Defense Department in 2011 that were implemented in 2015, said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who is drafting the bill with Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

Under those rules, Pentagon contracting officers can bar vendors that pose a security risk from competing for contracts before they’re awarded and halt contractors from hiring risky subcontractors after an award.

Under current Homeland Security Department rules, contracting officers working on unclassified contracts can’t bar vendors before an award based on information provided by intelligence agencies, Soraya Correa, the department’s chief procurement officer, who testified before two House Homeland Security panels last Thursday.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/07/dhs-would-get-more-power-bar-risky-contractors-under-forthcoming-bill/149675/

DHS would get more power to bar risky contractors under dueling proposals

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Two House Republicans are working on legislation that would expand the Homeland Security Department’s authority to deny contracts to companies that pose cybersecurity supply chain threats while the Trump administration is pushing an even more expansive proposal.

The bill in the House will be modeled on authorities Congress gave the Defense Department in 2011 that were implemented in 2015, said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., who is drafting the bill with Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

Under those rules, Pentagon contracting officers can bar vendors that pose a security risk from competing for contracts before they’re awarded and halt contractors from hiring risky subcontractors after an award.

Under current Homeland Security Department rules, contracting officers working on unclassified contracts can’t bar vendors before an award based on information provided by intelligence agencies, Soraya Correa, the department’s chief procurement officer, who testified before two House Homeland Security panels last Thursday.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/07/dhs-would-get-more-power-bar-risky-contractors-under-forthcoming-bill/149675/

 

Contractor takes on Herculean task of challenging agency’s conflict-of-interest determination

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Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) sustained a bid protest challenging the agency’s decision to exclude the protester from consideration based on a potential organizational conflict of interest (“OCI”).

The GAO decision serves as a reminder that an offeror that is excluded from a competition on the basis of a perceived OCI can challenge that decision in a protest before GAO.  And although GAO will give the agency a fair amount of deference, it will nonetheless sustain a protest where it concludes that the agency’s decision was unreasonable.

In the Archimedes Global bid protest, the contractor submitted a proposal to perform services in response to a solicitation issued by the Department of Homeland Security.  The solicitation included a clause permitting the agency to disqualify the incumbent contractor from competing for follow-on work because the predecessor contract required the incumbent to have access to non-public, procurement sensitive information.  Archimedes’ proposal listed as key personnel two program managers currently working for the incumbent.  And for that reason, the agency excluded Archimedes from consideration based on the grounds that those employees could have provided Archimedes with unequal access to information.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/06/in-archimedes-bid-protest-government-contractor-takes-on-herculean-task-of-challenging-the-agencys-oci-determination-and-wins/

 

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