GSA lifts curtain on OASIS replacement

The General Services Administration has kicked off what will likely be a long process to develop what will eventually replace its $50 billion OASIS contract vehicle for professional services across the government.

Step one in the process is a request for information that GSA released Tuesday. Included is a survey for industry to complete by March 17.

Other channels of feedback GSA will pursue include an industry day to be held on April 1. The RFI includes details on how to register for the event.

An overview document in the RFI describes several general domains and specialized domains GSA is considering for the new contract.

General domains:

• Technical and Engineering
• Research and Development
• Management and Advisory Services
• Business Administration
• Financial Services
• Environmental Services
• Marketing and Public Relations
• Logistics, Facilities
• Human Services (Human Resources, Legal, and Social Services)

Specialized domains:

• Base Operation Support Services
• Counterintelligence
• C4ISR
• Major Professional Services Acquisitions (large dollar value comprehensive professional services)
• Outside continental U.S.

In the survey, GSA is looking for feedback on the domains. The agency also is looking for ways to create more domains as the contract progresses.

GSA also describes a desire to reduce contract duplication as a benefit for small businesses. It also goes into areas such as company experience, ordering processes and source selection.

GSA does not plan to limit the number of awardees in each domain, as long as the vendor meets the minimum technical qualifications. Pricing will not be a factor in the selection of companies for spots on the contract. Price competition will take place the task order level.

But GSA is exploring ways to include data that will allow agencies to determine whether the pricing in the task order bids is fair and reasonable. GSA wants to develop tools that in part will require capturing pricing data from task order. It sounds like the data would be supplied by industry.

The agency also is considering methods for adding new vendors along the way, but has not decided if that means the solicitation will always be open or whether there will be multiple windows of opportunity each year.

OASIS has a total of 665 small business contractors and 255 large businesses across its various domains.

The new contract will not be dubbed OASIS 2. Instead it seems that the contract naming gods are going with something more fast food oriented.

The new contract is instead called the Best In Class Multiple Award Contract with the apt acronym BIC MAC. Perhaps the logo will include some golden arches.