USPTO starts activity for Infrastructure, Design, Engineering, Architecture, and Integration IDEAI-3

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeks sources to fulfill its continuing need for a full range of IT services to support its Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) via a multi-award contract vehicle with a combined value more than $200M. The contracts provide services for independent, objective, and expert technical advice and assistance for ongoing and future information technology initiatives.

In preparation of the IDEAI-2 contracts expiring in March 2019, the government plans to issue a Request for Information and follow it with an Industry Day after completing review of the requirements package. While this market research is imminent, specific dates and the acquisition strategy remain unestablished. In order to prepare the community for the IDEAI-3 competition, Deltek takes a look back at the first and second iterations of this USPTO IT services vehicle.

Vehicle basics

The original vehicle: IDEAI (Opp ID: 8246)

• Solicitation Date: 03/10/2008
• Award Date: 08/28/2008 (originally anticipated 08/30/2008 per Solicitation)
• Contract Start Date: 09/16/2008 and 09/24/2018
• Solicitation Number: DOC52PAPT0801006
• Value: $95M
• Awardees:
  • Project Performance Corporation; DOC50PAPT0801026
  • General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT); DOC50PAPT0801027
  • ManTech MBI, Inc. (a subsidiary of ManTech International, Corp.); DOC50PAPT0801028
• Offers Received: 29

 

IDEAI-2 Small Business (Opp ID: 69014)

• Solicitation Date: 07/17/2013
• Award Date: 03/24/2014 (originally anticipated 03/01/2014 per Solicitation)
• Contract Start Date: 03/24/2014 (originally anticipated 03/01/2014 per Solicitation)
• Solicitation Number: DOC52PAPT1300014
• Value: $118.65M at award, but increased to $188.65M
• Awardees:
  • AEEC, LLC; DOC50PAPT1400012
  • eGlobal Tech; DOC50PAPT1400011
  • Octo Consulting Group, Inc.; DOC50PAPT1400013
• Offers Received: 24

 

IDEAI-2 Full and Open (Opp ID: 100363)

• Solicitation Date: 10/09/2013
• Award Date: 04/08/2014 (originally anticipated 03/01/2014 per Solicitation)
• Contract Start Date: 04/08/2014 (originally anticipated 03/01/2014 per Solicitation)
• Solicitation Number: DOC52PAPT1300015
• Value: $50.85M at award, but increased to $80.4M
• Awardee:
  • General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT); DOC50PAPT1400015
• Offers Received: 5

 

First and second iterations similarities

Procurement category	Specifics
Award Type	Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity
Contract Type	Labor Hour (Firm Fixed Price and Time & Materials)
Duration	1 year(s) base plus 4 x 1 year(s) option(s) with 1 x 6 month(s) option to extend services
Place of Performance	Primarily Contractor’s Facility with meetings at USPTO in Arlington, Virginia, United States
Two-step Source Selection	Down selectees give Oral Presentations
Past Performance Factor	Offerors submit past performance evaluations to Dun & Bradstreet
Evaluation Factors	All evaluation factors other than price, when combined, are significantly more important than price

 

Evolved procurements

While finessing the continuation of the program, the Contracting Office made a few changes between the first iteration to the second iteration. For example, the NAICS Code was changed from 541519 to 541512, revealing a shift away from the vagueness of “Other Computer Related Services” to a focus on “Computer Systems Design Services”.

Additionally, the Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) was expanded to state that companies are prohibited from having both an award (including a subcontract) under IDEAI-2 and an award (including a subcontract) under System Development and Integration (SDI-NG) concurrently.

The SDI-NG2 Contracting Office told Deltek that it is closely reviewing the OCI portion of the upcoming Solicitation. Deltek anticipates this is because different phases of the same projects will likely be procured through both vehicles since SDI-NG2 (Opp ID: 125179) focuses on development while IDEAI-3 focuses on design. Considering these differences may help competitors choose between IDEAI-3 ($200M+ for five years) and SDI-NG2 ($1.5B+ for ten years). Both have plenty of subcontracting opportunities to entice a subcontractor.

While IDEAI-2 only resulted in four prime contracts, the number of reported subcontractors more than triple that amount. Out of the $66.5M allocated to incumbent General Dynamics Corp., more than $18M was dispersed to 13 subcontractors via 123 actions (averaging $146K per action). Regarding SDI-NG, $90M was dispersed to 40 subcontractors through 142 actions by means of five incumbents. While the number of reported SDI-NG subcontracts was not much more than IDEAI-2, the average values more than quadrupled the average of the IDEAI-2 subcontracts; SDI-NG subcontracts averaged $639K.

Think ahead

The IDEAI-3 milestones have remained unknown due to ongoing reviews. Deltek anticipates this is because further changes are on the horizon to prevent a repeat of the delays that impacted the source selection process of IDEAI-2. However, the IDEAI-3 Contracting Office said insight into previous specific pitfalls are unavailable since the Contracting Officials who procured IDEAI-2 have retired from the USPTO and these pitfalls are unknown to the IDEAI-3 contracting team.

Without an anticipated time frame for completion of reviews, the government could not specify anticipated milestone dates neither whether the procurement would consist of separate Small Business and Unrestricted Solicitations. Should reviews delay award beyond the incumbents’ current ordering period expirations of March 31, 2019, the Contracting Office could exercise the six-month option to extend services.

Until USPTO clarifies the acquisition strategy, vendors can sign up for updates via two separate Opportunity Reports:

IDEAI-3 Full & Open (Opp ID: 124691)

IDEAI-3 Small Business (Opp ID: 124102)