Air Force Research Laboratory permanently deletes $10B vehicle
Gettyimages.com / Krul UA
By
Ross Wilkers
The lab decides instead that its industry partnerships "are best served by using flexible, agile, and immediately available acquisition pathways.”
The Air Force Research Laboratory has decided it will no longer use a single contract to acquire a broad range of unclassified research-and-development support from industry.
Back in May, AFRL decided to go back down the path of a potential $10 billion science and technology contract after it pulled the plug on the vehicle in January. AFRL’s first cancellation of the contract was followed by a re-evaluation of the requirements and acquisition strategy.
AFRL has since decided to discontinue the multiple-award contract altogether after a review of market feedback and evolving mission requirements, the lab said in a Monday Sam.gov notice.
Setting up a “a single, overarching enterprise indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) would introduce administrative friction and timelines that would not align with our technology delivery benchmarks,” the lab said. “AFRL’s partnerships are best served by using flexible, agile, and immediately available acquisition pathways.”
AFRL cited commercial solutions openings, pitch days and modular prototyping agreements as examples of such pathways that it can execute contracts through in weeks versus months or years.
The lab will also continue to use vehicles specific to technical disciplines like aerospace and information, other transaction authority contracts, and Phase III direct awards through Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer contracts.
Government-wide contract vehicles will also be an option for AFRL, when it decides that broader commercial research-and-development services are appropriate.