Army engineers to merge tech contracts
Corps plans IT reengineering, could outsource up to 75 percent of tech jobs.
The Army Corps of Engineers expects to compete 75 percent of its information technology jobs as it moves toward an enterprise network that would replace 972 separate contracts with a single contract, the agency's chief information officer said. Following in the steps of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the corps in upcoming years will streamline the buying of IT and administration of IT services.
The corps, with 75 percent of its technology workforce eligible for retirement in three years and 85 percent in five years, plans to push IT management from local to regional levels, said Will Berrios, its CIO, speaking today during a briefing held by Federal Sources Inc., a government IT research firm in McLean, Va.
The corps last November released "USACE 2012: Aligning the Corps for Success in the 21st Century." The report identified missions and announced plans to make the eight regional districts the group's primary business centers, Berrios said.
The organization this year will start moving toward IT regionalization. But it will likely wait until after a competitive sourcing study is completed before releasing requests for information and proposals for its IT consolidation contract, Berrios said.
Business opportunities will center on networks, not personal computers and local area networks, Berrios said. "There is a network that connects you locally.