EPA has a four-pronged strategy to manage systems enterprisewide

• By Merry Mayer
• Sep 21, 1998

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking for a vendor to help it answer the
question: “What does the agency need?”

The winning vendor of the $35 million, five-year Information Infrastructure and
Architectural Support Contract (IIASC) will analyze EPA’s overall systems
architecture and create a strategy for designing and buying new systems.

The request for proposals, issued this month, covers work for the last of four parts of
EPA’s Enterprise Technology and Systems Services Procurement Strategy, said Ted
Harris, chief of EPA’s Information Technology Support and Acquisition Branch in
Research Triangle Park, N.C.

The environmental agency plans to award IIASC, a follow-on to the Information
Technology and Architectural Support contract, in November.

EPA launched ETASS in August 1996.

Under IIASC, the winning vendor will do a requirements analysis, a feasibility
assessment, a technology assessment and an enterprise systems planning analysis, and will
advise and assist other EPA contractors.

For instance, Harris said, the IIASC contractor will help EPA design and execute
systems changes to keep up with new laws and shifts in EPA’s responsibilities.

The contractor must agree to limit its work on future EPA contracts to avoid conflicts
of interest, Harris said.

“It is highly probable that individual and cumulative IIASC work assignments will
create conflicts for any contractor and subcontractors with significant systems
engineering or operations and maintenance responsibilities,” EPA noted in IIASC
information posted on its Web site.

EPA has awarded two contracts so far for ETASS and plans to award a third soon: