Center reaffirms $480 million engineering support contract decision

  • Published
  • By Chuck Paone
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, Mass. --  The U.S. Air Force's Electronic Systems Center, after performing a technical reevaluation recommended by the Government Accountability Office, has reaffirmed its May 2007 decision to award a contract worth a total ceiling value of $480 million to an industry team led by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. The original award had, until recently, been under protest.

The contract will provide Engineering and Technology Acquisition Support Services, referred to as ETASS, for up to the next three years. The contract carries a three-year period of performance that would expire December 31, 2010.

"We expect ETASS to significantly enhance the center's ongoing efforts to ensure consistent use of uniform engineering standards and procedures across all programs," said the center's acting director of Engineering, Col. Russ Kurtz. "Standardization of such processes will ultimately translate into new capability for the warfighter, delivered on-time and under budget. The ETASS team will also help to provide credible advice in assessing the center's acquisition programs in terms of the development contractors' process compliance, technical progress, and product performance."

These services will provide a broad range of engineering acquisition support, including, but not limited to: engineering services, engineering support, technical support, provisioning and logistics support, modeling and simulation, configuration and data management, architectural support, text and evaluation, security engineering and certification, capability based planning, commercial off-the-shelf integration, support, integration master plans, integration scheduling, and technical reviews in support of various research, development and production activities.

The contract work will be performed through 16 individual task orders. The contractor team has been awarded two task orders already, and five more will be awarded soon; the center plans to award the remaining nine task orders over the next several months.

ETASS is the third and final component of a three-part effort to replace the expired vehicle used to provide A&AS support, the $1.4 billion Information Technology Services Program (ITSP) II, which constituted upwards of 40 percent of the ESC work force in some organizations. The first component, the four-year, $88 million Specialized Cost Services, was awarded in October 2006. The second component, the $800 million, five-year Professional Acquisition Support Services contract, known as PASS, was awarded in April 2007.