Army to use OASIS for complex services contracts

The Army signed a memorandum of understanding with the General Services Administration to use the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) and OASIS Small Business contracts for procurement of complex professional services.

In a ceremony held Monday at GSA headquarters in Washington, D.C., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement Harry Hallock said the agreement would help the Army reduce costs and lead times associated with complex services contracts.

“In Fiscal Year 2014, the U.S. Army’s procurement spend was nearly 17 percent, or $74.3 billion of the total federal spend,” Hallock said. “There are a lot of vendors who want to contract with us. To ensure we are continuing to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, we will use the OASIS contracting vehicle to support our strategy of minimizing duplication of contracting efforts where we’ve determined the risk to be low.”

According to GSA, OASIS will act as a governmentwide integrated services solution and complement the agency’s Multiple Award Schedules, but with more capabilities and flexibility. The aim of the program is to eradicate duplicate contracts by providing a comprehensive option to federal agencies, saving the government about $1 billion annually.

Last year, GSA awarded 74 OASIS contracts to professional services vendors, including Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte and Lockheed Martin, and another 125 to small businesses under the OASIS Small Business program.

Through OASIS and OASIS Small Business, the Army will:

• Reduce excess costs associated with award and administration of multiple IDIQ and/or stand-alone contracts.
• Reduce the lead time and administrative efforts it currently takes agencies to acquire complex professional services.
• Gain insight into spend volume and labor types and costs across the Federal Government and facilitate negotiation of lower pricing at the task-order level.
• Improve and reduce time associated with the proposal review process by creating “apples to apples” comparisons of proposed labor costs.
• Eliminate need for Task-Order Contracting Officers to evaluate proposals from poor performers.