Industry feedback paramount to Navy NGEN recompete

Now just two years out from the recompete of the Navy’s $3.4 billion Next Generation Enterprise Network contract, officials from the Naval Enterprise Networks (NEN) want to gather as much industry feedback as possible.

Speaking at an industry day on Wednesday, Philip Anderson, deputy program manager, PMW 205, talked about the new contract, though many details have yet to hit the streets.

The NGEN recompete is slated for June 2018, picking up right after the current NGEN contract, held by HP Enterprise, expires.

The new NGEN recompete contract’s focus areas, said Philip Anderson said, will be product services, cloud delivery, transport, service management and service integration.

The Navy wants industry input to heavily affect the recompete, Anderson said, and according to an NGEN recompete document, industry is recommending that the next contract:

• Leverage a diverse, capable vendor base
• Leverage commercial services and delivery methodologies
• Emphasize speed-to-delivery
• Support industry pursuits of innovation
• Fully support the command and control and agility required by network operators

Regarding the final point, NEN is considering moving from a single source service delivery model, on-premises, to a multi-source service delivery model which will be on and off premises and will help the Navy align to unique customer profiles and C2 requirements, Anderson said.

The Navy also said in a document that future demand and associated timing may lead to multiple contracts.

So far, NEN has issued two requests for information and held two industry days. The third industry day is planned for this summer.

Industry is encouraged to reach out to the Navy with comments, questions and feedback; however, the time to do so is sooner rather than later, Capt. Michael Abreu, NEN program manager, stressed at the industry day. “If you want to meet with us and talk to us, we can still do that, but you need to recognize at some point we’re going to run out of time,” Abreu said.

Though no RFP date has been determined, Deltek estimates the solicitation will be released in June 2017.