Perspecta lands DISA OTA to build background investigation system

The Defense Information Systems Agency has chosen the recently-launched Perspecta to develop a prototype for a future integrated case management system to be used in background investigations.

DISA envisions its National Background Investigation Services Investigation Management Shared Service platform as helping speed up the time to process investigations for security clearances through automation and process optimization, the agency said Monday.

The OTA contract is valued at $49 million.

“We’re building a first-of-its-kind enterprise system that brings together the complex integration of a number of disparate systems on an unprecedented scale. We needed to hear from as wide a selection of vendors as possible to understand what was possible and be able to narrow to what’s probable," NBIS Program Manager Raju Shah said in a release.

DISA wants the platform to bring together core functions of the systems and provide an interface for users that conduct the background investigations.

The current backlog of security clearance requests exceeds 700,000 and this initiative is part of DISA's efforts to help the Defense Department make progress on its own front. DOD is poised to take over its own background investigation process from the National Background Investigation Bureau, which was stood up in 2016 after the Office of Personnel Management data security breach.

NBIB Director Charles Phalan said in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing March 7 it will likely take years for the government to significantly bring that backlog down.

DISA technically awarded the contract to "Enterprise, LLC" based in Herndon, Virginia. That name goes back to when the business was known as HP Enterprise Services, which later merged into DXC Technology. In June, it was part of another merger when it becamse part of the company now known as Perspecta.

The merger to create Perspecta also included KeyPoint Government Solutions, which is in the business of conducting background investigations.

Perspecta's teammates for the project are Accenture Federal Services, Next Tier Concepts, Pegasystems and Torch Research. They will build the NBIS IM thrugh a scaled agile framework methodology into a cloud-based architecture, DISA said.

DISA opted for an OTA versus a more traditional procurement process to more quickly research, develop and scale a prototype.