GSA awards $7.5M contract-writing system pilot as procurement modernization continues
The General Services Administration took its first step toward launching a modernized agencywide contract-writing system by awarding Sevatec a $7.5 million pilot phase task order Wednesday.
Dubbed the Contract Acquisition Life-cycle Management (CALM) system, it will consolidate and standardize the Federal Acquisition Service‘s many internal processes and systems accounting for $60 billion in goods and services procured governmentwide annually.
CALM will also streamline suppliers’ ability to submit offers and manage contracts they’re awarded.
“CALM marks the beginning of a new era in agency-wide, end-to-end contract management and administration,” said Judith Zawatsky, assistant commissioner of the Office of Systems Management within FAS, in the announcement. “Our goal with CALM is to provide a comprehensive, flexible, scalable and highly configurable solution for all types of contract actions, from the simplest to the most complex.”
Sevatec‘s pilot will run 100 days, after which FAS can request additional functionality over a couple of years before scaling CALM agencywide.
CALM is one of several initial task orders on the multimillion-dollar Chief Information Officer Modernization and Enterprise Transformation (COMET) contract for upgrading or replacing outdated backend procurement systems.
Northern Virginia-based national security contractor Sevatec holds one of the 12 spots on the COMET blanket purchase agreement and already won a $116 million “Halley’s COMET” task order in November to upgrade or develop more than 50 applications for FAS.
Another task order for technology GSA uses to procure vehicles like aircraft has yet to be awarded.
The eight large businesses with spots on the COMET BPA are Booz Allen Hamilton, CGI Federal, Digital Management, Octo Consulting Group, REI Systems, TechFlow, Unisys Corporation, and Vencore. Other small businesses with spots are Collabralink Technologies, Incentive Technologies Group and Karsun Solutions.
“CALM is one of the key deliverables for the Federal Marketplace Strategy, which aims to reduce the burden on the contracting workforce and make it easier to do business with GSA,” said Julie Dunne, FAS commissioner, in a statement.
