How the Army Competes a Contract Before It Posts One
A special notice went up at 6:31 on Friday evening with white papers due Sunday at midnight, no NAICS code, and a gate that only prior event attendees could clear. The authority is 10 USC 4023, and the competition it satisfies already happened somewhere you cannot watch.
If your capture process begins when a notice lands on SAM, you were ineligible for this one before it posted.
At 6:31 on Friday evening, the Army put up a special notice numbered W5170126R0002. Title: JAILBREAK, Needs-Driven Acquisition for Near-term Operations, Accelerated Capability Event.
White papers due Sunday at 11:59pm.
No NAICS code on the record. No PSC. No set-aside determination. No CLIN structure, no ceiling, no period of performance. The instrument named in the body is an experimental purposes agreement under 10 USC 4023, and the office running it is the Army FUZE Contracting Center on behalf of the Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate.
Then read the first gate of entry, which the notice marks GO/NO-GO: the vendor must already hold a Memorandum of Observation from Jailbreak 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0, or be on site working toward one.
There is no SAM notice for Jailbreak 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0. We searched the full opportunity index. Three records match the word JAILBREAK, and two of them are unrelated notices from 2011 and 2013.
Fifty-Three Hours, None of Them a Workday
The clock is the part that survives a second reading (chart below).
First publication was Friday, August 7, at 6:31:39pm Eastern. The notice was reposted Saturday afternoon at 3:06, this time with the program nickname stripped out of the title.
The Q&A round, four questions and four answers, went up Sunday at 3:40pm. Responses closed Sunday at 11:59.
That is 53 hours and 27 minutes of open window containing zero business hours.
The rest of the schedule is in the notice's own words. Pitches Monday, ten minutes each at SOFWERX in Tampa, five minutes of plan-of-action and five minutes of judge questions, at least one human physically in the room. Government negotiation and award planned for Monday as well. Selected teams announced Tuesday. Prototype assessment the following Monday. Deployment and operational assessment in theater from August 17 to 24.
Three days from a Friday-night posting to a planned award. Ten days to equipment moving.
The rest of this brief is for subscribers.
The specific solicitations, dockets, and dates to act on sit past this line.
$50 a month, or $500 a year.
Already a subscriber? Sign in