GSA re-issues RFQ for HSPD-12 office
- By Jason Miller
- Jan 18, 2007
The much-anticipated replacement contract for the General
Services Administration's Homeland Security Presidential
Directive-12 managed-service office asks vendors to provide
assistance to agencies in handing out smart cards and developing
card management systems for at least 40 agencies and 420,000
federal employees.
The new request for quotes, which GSA issued late last week to
the 18 qualified schedule holders, focuses more on technical and
security requirements, requires companies to perform
operational-capability demonstrations, and a full security
certification and accreditation before they issue cards. GSA also
plans to award the contract in time to help agencies issue more
cards by October, said Steve Duncan, GSA's Access Certificate
for E-Services program manager.
Duncan spoke yesterday at the monthly Interagency Smart Card
Advisory Board meeting in Washington.
The 141-page RFQ details the improved approach GSA is taking for
this contract as compared to the original contract, which it rushed
out the door last summer, industry experts said.
"GSA seems to be doing it the right way this time," said Jeremy
Grant, a senior vice president and emerging technologies analyst
for the Stanford Washington Research Group of Washington and a
former executive with Multimax. "They seem to acknowledge they were
hasty the first time and now they learned a few things and will be
smarter."
GSA awarded BearingPoint Inc. of McLean, Va., a five-year, $104 million deal in August to run its managed-services office. BearingPoint helped GSA and agencies meet the initial Oct. 27 deadline to set up the infrastructure to issue cards. GSA then decided to cancel BearingPoint's contract and recompete it in order to get more competition and better prices. BearingPoint's contract was set to expire Jan. 7, but GSA extended it because of the delay in issuing the new contract.
The likely teams bidding on the new contract include Lockheed
Martin Corp. and General Dynamics, BearingPoint, IBM, and EDS and
Northrop Grumman Corp., Grant said.
Lockheed, EDS and Xtec Inc. of Miami, another likely bidder,
protested GSA's initial award to BearingPoint. GSA cancelled
the contract before the Government Accountability Office could make
a decision.
In the new RFQ, GSA is asking vendors to provide an end-to-end
system for enrollment, identity management, card management, card
production, card issuance and activation.
The vendor will support 225 permanent enrollment and card
activation stations, and 25 mobile enrollment and activation
stations, the RFQ said.
GSA also wants the vendor to provide maintenance for existing
HSPD-12 systems, the document said.
The winning vendor will have 30 days after the award to set up
initial functionality and be at full production in 90 days, the RFQ
said. The contractor must deploy at least 50 enrollment stations
per month starting Sept. 30.
Proposals are due Feb. 2, and GSA expects to spend the next
month evaluating vendor demonstration of their systems, Duncan
said.
In other news, GSA seeks information on behalf of the Treasury
Department about what industry can provide for integration support
for personal-identity-verification (PIV) cards under HSPD-12.
The contractor will design, test, deploy and maintain the PIV product and services, procure all its components, develop installation packages of hardware and software, and support operations and maintenance of the deployed system, GSA said in its request for information.
GCN staff writer Mary Mosquera contributed to this
story.