Alion to continue designing Air Force readiness system

Alion Science and Technology Corp. will continue creating a Web-based reporting system for the Air Force under a five-year contract worth as much as $8.5 million.

Under the follow-on award, Alion will keep its work to design and maintain the Predictive Readiness Assessment System (PRAS) for the Air Force Readiness Office.

PRAS assesses current and past readiness levels and the impact of budgetary funding on readiness, Alion officials said.

The modeling and simulation system gives Air Force decision-makers key information that helps them decide how to allocate resources and reconstitute force structures based on various funding scenarios.

That information will enable leaders to forecast the impact and risks to various operational plans and scenarios and adjust policies, force structures and operations to mitigate projected readiness shortfalls, officials said.

In the past six years, Alion has developed PRAS from concept to a working Web-based Secret IP Router Network system, said Dick Brooks, Alion’s senior vice president and manager of its Distributed Simulation Group

“PRAS can now provide senior Air Force leadership with an integrated view of present and future readiness,” Brooks said.

The sole-source, firm-fixed-price contract runs for one-year with four option years. The period of performance ends Feb. 28, 2014.

The Air Force District of Washington at Bolling Air Force Base is the contracting authority.

Alion, of McLean, Va., ranks No. 31 on Washington Technology’s 2008 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.