ETASS request for proposal due by end of June

  • Published
  • By Chuck Paone
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  The Electronic Systems Center Enterprise Acquisition Division now expects to release the request for proposal for the center's overarching engineering support contract work before the end of June.

The Engineering and Technology Acquisition Support Services, known as ETASS II, is the follow-on contract to the center's ETASS contract, initially awarded in 2007. The original contract was slated to run three years but is currently operating on a 12-month extension.

ETASS II will provide ESC acquisition directorates and ESC functional staff offices with various engineering and technical capabilities that cannot be obtained from the government's current and limited organic resources. The overall systems acquisition workload at ESC, both in terms of programs and funding, has increased significantly in the past 25 years, according to the ETASS II program description.

The program management team has done a lot of preparation to get to this point. They've also solicited and incorporated quite a bit of input from industry.

"We've released two draft RFPs to date, and the feedback we've gotten and considered has really helped us refine the RFP we intend to release next month," said Fred Firehammer, the ETASS II program manager.

Patrick Marr, director of the Enterprise Acquisition Division, said this sort of outreach and willingness to consider industry comments is a critical component of all the division's efforts.

"We certainly value industry's insights, and we definitely try to account for them," he said.

Unlike ETASS I, which relied on one contract with a single prime contractor, ETASS II is anticipated to use a multiple-awards approach. Also unlike its predecessor, all ETASS II efforts will be led by small businesses. Larger companies will be able to participate via teaming arrangements, performing various percentages of the work, depending on specific circumstances.

Small businesses in this case are being defined by the North American Industry Classification System 541712, using the aircraft industry size standard of 1,500 employees or fewer. In the previous support contracting round initiated in 2006, ESC classified businesses as small if they had 500 or fewer employees at the point of contract award.

The new support contracting vehicles - ETASS and Professional Acquisition Support Services, known as PASS II - will differ from their predecessors in many ways. Chief among those changes will be a new emphasis on performance.

"With the old way of doing business, all we could do was put out a requirement for a certain number of labor hours and then look back and say, 'yes, we had someone in that seat for that number of hours,'" Mr. Marr said.

The challenge is to develop fair, accurate, performance-based measures and realistic cost estimates, he acknowledged.

The Air Force, following Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Dr. Ashton Carter's lead in looking to "improve services tradecraft," has established a strategic sourcing training program for this. In the Air Force, it has been championed by Blaise Durante, the Air Force deputy assistant secretary for Acquisition Integration and Maj. Gen. Wendy Masiello, who had been serving as the Air Force program executive officer for Services.

ESC's PASS II team, led by program manager Mike Rein, was one of the first to complete a recent pilot of this 'Just in Time' training, provided by the University of Tennessee.

The center has also established an overarching integrated product team, or OIPT, composed of center senior functionals and the deputy directors of ESC's acquisition directorates. The lead instructor for this 'Just in Time' training, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Stu Cranston, briefed to that OIPT at its initial session. Now Mr. Rein's team reports on progress and discusses requirements with the OIPT periodically.

All of these efforts are intended to ensure that the services contract program managers have the best possible understanding of program requirements, and that the functionals and program managers are fully aware of the services contracting procedures and status.

And, according to Mr. Marr, it's important that everyone stay focused on the bottom line result of getting the best possible bang for the government's buck.

"We need to acquire the same capabilities with fewer dollars," Mr. Marr said.