MDA Meet-Up

The Missile Defense Agency plans to hold a "pre-proposal conference" later on this month to talk about its recently released final request for proposals for the MDA Engineering and Support Services (MiDAESS) program that will consolidate the 200-plus service contracts the agency currently manages.

According to a Federal Business Opportunities announcement posted yesterday:

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will host a pre-proposal conference for the MiDAESS RFPs on July 8, 2009 in Huntsville, AL at a location to be determined. The location, time, and agenda will be provided in a future announcement. The government plans to hold only one pre-proposal conference.

As Inside Missile Defense reported last year when the first draft of the RFP was released:

MDA spends approximately $900 million annually on contractor support services for functional areas like quality, safety and mission assurance; business and financial management; administrative and professional support; engineering; acquisition management; and warfighter support, among others, according to briefing slides that accompany the draft RFP posted on Federal Business Opportunities.

In 2004, MDA began a re-engineering effort "to better align the agency to achieve an overall goal of developing a single integrated ((ballistic missile defense)) system," according to the RFP’s executive summary. "A foundational premise of the re-engineering was to centralize control in the agency headquarters and de-centralize execution in the field."

"We are constantly looking for ways that we can be more efficient and more effective," ((then-MDA Director Lt. Gen. Trey)) Obering told reporters at a Feb. 12 ((2008)) conference sponsored by Aviation Week, "and this ((draft RFP)) is part of that."