The Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), has enormous brain power requirements for its DoD Information Analysis Centers (IAC). And it’s calling upon contractors to provide it.

This is huge, a $28B Multiple Award IDIQ, F&O/SBSA effort, combining 40 plus incumbent contracts and taking DoD sponsored R&D – in scope and size — to the next level… and beyond.

The draft RFP dropped on March 31; and finalized solicitation material is expected out in June.

Complex Structure

This R&D Monster has a lot of moving parts. It features three distinctly separate competition pools. Separate bids are required for each; (submitting multiple bids is permitted).

This is a 2-year base plus 4 x 2 year option(s) 10-year contract with TOs configured along various lines: FFP, Cost + FF, Cost + Incentive Fee.

Serious bidders shouldn’t waste any time kicking their brains into high gear to get their business development, capture, and their proposal submissions ready.

Many Are Called…

For over 65 years, the IACs have provided the technical data and analytics that support DoD operations.

The IACs collect, analyze and reuse data to answer recurring challenges, identify long-term trends and provide recommendations to the DoD research and acquisition communities.

The Best Are Chosen

The IAC program puts thousands of top-flight scientists and engineers to work in over 270 Technical Area Tasks (TATs), organized into three areas. They are:

1. Cyber Security and Information Systems Information Analysis Center (CSIAC)
Focus areas: • Cyber Security • Software Data & Analysis • Knowledge Management & Information Sharing • Modeling & Simulation.
Current Awardees: 10 large, 6 small.

2. Defense Systems Information Analysis Center (DSIAC)
Focus areas: • Advanced Materials • Autonomous Systems • Directed Energy • Energetics • Military Sensing • Non-lethal Weapons and Information Operations • Reliability, Maintainability, Quality, Supportability, and Interoperability (RMQSI) • Survivability and Vulnerability • Weapons Systems.
Current Awardees: 9 large, 3 small.

3. Homeland Defense and Security Information Analysis Center (HDIAC)
Focus areas: Homeland Security and Defense • Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) • Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Defense • Biometrics • Medical • Cultural Studies • Alternative Energy.
Current awardees: 11 large, 2 small.

From Data to Decisions

The purpose of the aforementioned IACs is to give military commanders the information they need to make correct data-driven, battle-winning decisions. Personnel assigned to IACs will be called upon to provide reports, technical data and analyses in SOARs – State of the Art Reports. They will be called upon to establish Communities of Practice, exchanges where they can collaborate and answer Technical Enquiries in 4 hours or less, and Extended Enquiries in a 24-40 hour time frame. Technical Area Tasks (TAT) – (in the form of Task Orders) will range in size from a few thousand dollars to over $100 million each. These arrangements are not to be used for staff augmentation or routine operations, but limited solely to provision of the scientific and technical information to win on the battlefield.

Winning the Proposal Battle

According to military sage Sun Tzu, battles are won (and lost) not on the battlefield, itself, but beforehand, in the minds of military commanders.

IDIQ and TO Winners will be chosen on a Combination Subjective Tradeoff / Technically Acceptable-Unacceptable, Best Value basis.

The battles of the future will be won by the commanders who have the best information, used correctly to make the best strategic and tactical decisions.

And winners of the IDIQ contract and the TOs to follow will be those who best apply their brainpower to the tasks of proposal submission excellence.