Navy gearing up for NGEN recompete

When the Navy was still working through the procurement process for the $3.5 billion Next Generation Enterprise Network contract, they talked about the difficulties and challenges of crafting the follow-on to the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet contract.

Development of NGEN, eventually won by NMCI incumbent Hewlett-Packard Co., had been delayed several times, and NMCI was extended several years as a result. I asked at a Navy briefing, "How soon after NGEN is awarded will you start working on the follow-on to NGEN"?

The Navy official joked that it would be the next day.

Well, it wasn’t the next day, but the Navy is getting started on NGEN’s replacement and has announced that it plans to release a request for information on Sept. 16.

According to a Navy announcement, the NGEN contract with HP expires on June 27, 2018. If you back up the calendar from there, proposals would likely be due nearly a year ahead of that, so sometime in the summer of 2017. The final request for proposals would probably be a few months before that, so let’s say March 2017.

Given all of that, the draft RFP would need to come out during 2016 – sometime next year.

So, while this RFI might seem early at first blush, the Navy really doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room in its schedule if it expects to be transitioned to a new contract by June 27, 2018.

The first RFI will include a market survey designed to identify IT vendors, their services and service delivery methodology, the Navy said. The comment period will be about 30 days after the RFI is released.

NGEN supports the NMCI network and has 300,000 seats and 700,000 users at 2,500 locations around the world.

The Navy expects to release a second RFI in the November/December timeframe.

NGEN came down to a tightly fought battle between HP and a team comprised of Computer Sciences Corp. and Harris Corp. The contract had two parts, so CSC was the prime on one and Harris was its primary sub. On the other part, Harris was the prime and CSC the sub.

NGEN also was competed as a lowest price, technically acceptable procurement. The Navy said it saw no services it was willing to pay a premium for. No word yet on whether the NGEN II, or whatever it’ll be called, will also be LPTA.

More on Wednesday when the RFI comes out.