Contracts With the Future
THREE RECENT PEO EIS AGREEMENTS COVER UP TO $30 BILLION IN IT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.
Most of the time, contract awards are like agate type in the sports page—small, easy to miss and probably of concern only to competitors and their fans.
Three recently awarded Army IT contracts, however, are of unusually broad interest and significance, with the potential to improve the quality of life for warfighters and their families everywhere. DoD military and civilian personnel and contractors will all benefit from the nearly $30 billion in indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity IT contracts recently awarded by the Army Contracting Agency, Information Technology E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center.
The Army has entered the IT battlespace in design, installation, purchasing and connectivity. We have our sights set on an information goal line like no other. In the next decade, communications creativity will accelerate, and connectivity for warfighters and their families will be some two billion times faster than it is today.
It doesn’t come cheap. The Information Technology Enterprise Solutions Services (ITES-2S) contract, awarded to eight large and three small businesses, has a contract ceiling of $20 billion over the next nine years. ITES-2S provides the brain power, engineering, mapping and networking to make tomorrow’s information technology command center come alive.
“ITES-2S will form a procurement cornerstone for the next decade as we build the Army IT enterprise,” said Kevin Carroll, Army Program Executive Officer for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), who oversees some 40 major programs in infrastructure, finance, logistics and business systems.
The next step on this IT ride is the Army’s Desktop and Mobile Computing-2 (ADMC-2) contract award. ADMC-2 is the approved buying source for the next generation of laptops, desktops, printers and monitors. The Army Small Computer Program (ASCP) is using collective buying power to drive down costs by buying in bulk twice a year. During the last commodity buy, the Army saved $13 million, according to Carroll.
Nine companies will get a piece of the ADMC-2 action. The IDIQ contract is worth $5 billion over 10 years.
INFRASTRUCTURE MODERNIZATION
Then there is the Infrastructure Modernization Contract (IMOD), which supports the Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP).
Here’s how the IMOD contract helps: ITES provides the architects, ADMC provides the enablers and IMOD provides the connectivity—mostly fiber-optic cabling, some satellite connectivity and other necessities designed to increase bandwidth. The copper cable of the past is ancient compared to the throughput of today’s lightenabled fiber optic cable. What used to take hours to transmit now takes seconds.
The Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Switched Systems, a part of PEO EIS, is the leading proponent for the contract. IMOD products and services are available to posts, camps and stations worldwide. They replace the older Digital Switched Systems Modernization Program contracts. The IDIQ contract is worth $4 billion over 10 years.
PEO EIS, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., is leading the charge for use of these contracts. There is no doubt that these vehicles, combined with other PEO EIS programs, projects and products, are in place to design the biggest and best IT system of the future for the Army and Department of Defense. The contracts are in place to enable us to provide the largest network pipeline the world has ever seen. This pipe should be readily accessible—even for visitors and home use.
“Infrastructure modernization is a top priority for the Army,” said the chief information officer/G6 of the Army, Lieutenant General Steven W. Boutelle. Boutelle believes that being CAC-enabled and using thin-client technology will help us get there. Both of these ambitious efforts are underway at the CIO/G6.
Now is the time to commit resources to make this work. It is time to deploy brain power and out-of-the-box thinking while adopting a business case to make the network, the collaboration center, the voice-video-data common operating platform, safeguarded with security and information assurance, the most reliable network in the world. These contracts will enable us do all this.
At PEO EIS, we are encouraging DoD and the Army to get connected. We’re collecting tickets, because this IT ride is just beginning.
For more information on these contracts and what they will do for your organization, contact the PEO EIS public affairs office: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (703) 806-4557/3705. We’ll steer you in the right direction. ♦
