CSC lands airspace upgrades contract

Computer Sciences Corp. won an 11-year contract worth a potential $589 million from the Federal Aviation Administration to modernize portions of the National Airspace System, the company said today.

The traffic flow modernization contract will increase the capacity of the nation's airspace and reduce costs by enabling airlines, research organizations and the FAA to make collaborative decisions that optimize the air traffic flow and minimize the adverse effects of bad weather, CSC said.

The performance-based contract has three base years and four two-year options. Its initial design phase is valued at $13.5 million.

Under the contract, CSC will create an open architecture platform and upgrade the core elements of the FAA's existing traffic flow management system. The company also will network fragmented components of the agency's information technology infrastructure and help reengineer the system's business processes to meet users' needs. CSC expects around 80 percent of the contract's scope to focus on system modernization work, and the remainder to focus on adding new functions to the system.

The El Segundo, Calif., IT services company built the FAA's current traffic flow management system. The FAA's systems operations division of traffic flow management services will oversee and manage the program.

CSC's team members on the contract include the government communications systems division of Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla.; Unisys Corp.'s federal systems group of Reston, Va.; Hi-Tec Systems Inc. of Egg Harbor Township, N.J.; Sensis Corp. of Dewitt, N.Y.; Z-Tech Corp. of Rockville, Md.; Optimus Corp. of Silver Spring, Md.; Planning Systems, Inc. of Reston, Va.; CNA Corp. of Alexandria, Va.; Technology and Management Associates of Galloway, N.J.; and Quail Ridge Industries of Smithburg, Md.

CSC also announced today that since April 2, its federal sector business unit has signed 119 previously unannounced contracts and subcontracts worth around $441 million, during the first quarter of the its fiscal year, which ends today.

The contracts range in value from $10,000 to $125 million and vary in duration from three months to 10 years.

Civil agencies account for 77 awards worth a total $204 million with durations of three months to 10 years. Defense Department agencies accounted for 42 awards collectively worth $237 million that vary in length from four months to six years.

The values represent what CSC expects to receive if all options are exercised.

Some of the work that CSC will perform under the contracts includes providing enterprise resource planning, networking and developing distance learning applications and providing technical services.

CSC is No. 3 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list of federal contractors, ranked according to their prime IT contracting revenue. The company employs 90,000 workers and had 2003 revenue of $11.3 billion.