The Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) has issued two Requests for Proposals (RFP) for two contract vehicles worth a potential $485 million combined that would permit various work done in the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives (CBRNE) area to transition uninterrupted through the acquisition process, the service said yesterday.
The contracts, one an unrestricted full and open competition, the other a small business set-aside, will be used to support the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center’s (ECBC) research, development, acquisition, analysis, experimentation, product engineering and integration, testing, safety, surety, security, health and environmental requirements, as well as similar needs from other customers, ECBC said.
“This new contract mechanism will give RDECOM, ECBC and client organizations the flexibility to acquire a very broad range of contract support from basic laboratory research through CBRNE defense systems design acquisition, engineering, development and testing,” Charles Comaty of the RDECOM Contracting Center said in a statement. “Right now there is an artificial break in the development cycle of CBRNE defense technologies that occurs when they transition from the research portion of the development cycle to the engineering portion. That break occurs because there are two sets on contracts. As a technology transitions from research to engineering, new contracts must be initiated in order for the work to proceed. This new vehicle will allow for a seamless, cradle-to-grave acquisition process in which most, of not all the work on any given project may be covered under a single contract.”
The contract vehicles will be for indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity awards over five years.