DISA finalizes $1B testing support award

The Defense Information Systems Agency has finalized its award of a potential $1 billion contract for test and evaluation services almost seven months after DISA started to reconsider its original decision.

DISA re-evaluated proposals for this second iteration of the Test, Evaluation and Certification II contract after it sought and got a remand in April from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge overseeing a post-award protest from the incumbent Jacobs.

That reconsideration has led DISA to select Agile Defense for the potential 10-year award. Agile Defense announced its win of the contract Tuesday, which indicates the protest phase is over and the work can now proceed.

Agile Defense's scope of work under the contract includes test and evaluation planning, results reporting, and data collection and analysis for several of DISA's functional technology areas that include the Defense Department's main information network called DoDIN.

Work under TEC II will take place over an initial four-year base period followed by up to six individual option years.

By going with Agile Defense, DISA appears to be at least starting a tradition of choosing a newcomer for the TEC program over the incumbent. Jacobs won the current iteration of TEC in 2017 as effectively a takeaway from several incumbents.

For the TEC II competition, DISA chose American Systems in the first evaluation of proposals in late 2022. Five companies in total submitted bids for the recompeted contract and two of them protested the award.

DISA decided to take a corrective action and re-evaluate bids, after which the agency stuck with American Systems.

Jacobs filed its lawsuit regarding the procurement in February after that decision, but Agile Defense's announcement appears to be the end of the legal fight and start of the new contract.