The Army has a few questions for you as EAGLE's version 2 nears
By
Nick Wakeman
The Army is working on its next EAGLE contract and it is looking for more feedback from contractors on what is working well and where they can improve.
As the Army prepares for a two-day industry day on version two of its EAGLE contract later this month, it is asking potential bidders to ponder a few questions first.
EAGLE -- or Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise -- is a $23.5 billion contract for a wide range of support services. The Army made 49 awards in 2012.
As the Army works toward the next iteration, it is holding a two-day event in Davenport, Iowa that will include presentations as well as one-on-one meetings.
Last week, the Army released a set of questions that it wants attendees to think about and provide feedback. The event is Oct. 24-25 but the Army wants the responses to the questions by Oct. 13.
Most of the questions revolve around how the Army can make the contract work more smoothly and open the door to new ideas.
The first question asks about EAGLE’s requirements and the modified best value approach the Army used to make awards: “Does this approach present the best opportunity for the Government to receive best value?”
They also want to know if there is language or attachments that the Army used that prevented contractors from provide a unique approach.
Other questions also got at barriers to unique approaches or elements that made developing an approach or proposal challenging.
They also ask the reverse: were there opportunities that let contractors propose a unique solution?
In other words, it sounds like they want folks to identify things that are working well and things that aren’t working well.
There are a couple questions that deal with bidding minimum hours and whether that helps or hurts bidders. The Army is looking for specific examples and recommendations.
The questions also float the idea of caps on indirect rates for the life of the contract as way to mitigate the risk of low bids during the proposal submission and only to increase rates after award. They want to know if a cap impacts the offerors ability to perform during the contract. Are there risks?
In all there are 11 questions.
This kind of reach out is another example that we are seeing of how the government is trying to gather as much feedback from industry as possible, particularly about how these large IDIQs operate. We’ve seen this at GSA with how they developed OASIS and EIS as well as the ongoing work on Alliant 2.
You might not get all things you want, in fact you might not get anything, but it is probably worth your while to respond and provide some feedback.