Open season soon begins for NITAAC CIO-SP3 Small Biz

Small businesses have an opportunity to join an important IT contract as the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center hosts several meetings over the coming months.

NITAAC is planning to solicit proposals for its Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 Small Business (CIO-SP3) government-wide acquisition contract. It’s the on-ramp open season for the contract that was awarded in 2012.

Needing to increase the number of small businesses, NITAAC is looking for companies described as small businesses, 8(a)-certified companies, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and businesses located in historical underutilized zones, or HUBZones.

The center is planning several industry days to give companies an overview of the 10-year, $20 billion contract.

Officials scheduled an industry day in Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov. 20, at the Small Business Administration Hawaii District Office. Interested companies can find registration details on the NITAAC website at  https://nitaac.nih.gov/nitaac/free-training.

NITAAC will host a Web-based industry day meeting in December. It has also scheduled industry days in Colorado and California in February. More specific details have not been announced.

The center expects to release a request for proposals in February or March.

“I look forward to meeting a new group of innovative small businesses at the upcoming industry days. They will potentially be joining a select group of contractors able to meet NITAAC’s rigorous competition standards,” said Robert Coen, NITAAC’s program director.

The 10-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity GWAC offers IT support for the Federal Enterprise Architecture, the Federal Health Architecture and the Defense Department Enterprise Architecture. In 2012, NITAAC awarded spots on the contract to 65 vendors.

The Office of Management and Budget issued a memo Oct. 16 that requires agencies to purchase basic laptops and desktops via “Strategic Solutions Programs” on GWACs, including NITAAC’s Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners (CIO-CS) GWAC, the General Services Administration’s Schedule 70 contracts, and NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) GWAC.

OMB officials want to reduce the number of contracts for laptops and desktops, standardizing the computer configurations for common requirements, and develop demand management and business practices.

“Improving IT commodity acquisition and management practices is a critical step in the implementation of Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and in improving value to taxpayers,” U.S. Chief Acquisition Officer Anne Rung and U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott wrote in a blog post.