Alliant procurement strategy under review at GSA

The General Services Administration plans to hold a public forum on its multibillion-dollar Alliant procurement in the second half of November, and may issue a second set of draft requests for proposals if the agency makes any major changes to the program, the GSA official in charge of Alliant said Oct. 27.

John Johnson, assistant commissioner of service development and service delivery in GSA's Integrated Technology Service, is reviewing Alliant's strategy. He plans to complete the review by Nov. 11.

GSA will hold a conference on Alliant one to two weeks after Johnson and his team complete their review to give industry and other interested parties an opportunity to voice their opinions, Johnson said. As part of the changes to Alliant, GSA is creating a national-level staff to oversee the contract and will shift the program's management center from San Diego to Washington.

"As we craft our strategy for Alliant, we plan to share [the strategy] with all the stakeholders in terms of making sure that strategy is sound, that you understand it and that you have an opportunity to provide feedback to us in terms of its relevancy [and] its ability to meet some of the goals and objectives that we will cite," Johnson said. He spoke yesterday at Government Electronics and Information Technology Association conference in Falls Church, Va.

Johnson also said that GSA will issue a second set of draft RFPs if his team makes substantial changes to the procurement. The first set was issued March 31. He declined to say when the final RFPs will come out.

Alliant is a 10-year contract that will let all government agencies buy IT solutions and complex integration services. Alliant will replace the expiring Millennia and Applications and Support for Widely Diverse End-User Requirements (Answer) contracts for governmentwide IT services.

Alliant consists of two separate procurements. The Alliant Full and Open contract is valued at $50 billion, while the Alliant Small Business set-aside is valued at $15 billion. GSA plans to issue 20 awards for the full and open and 40 awards for the small business contract in 2006.