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The General Services Administration leases about 200,000 vehicles in domestic and overseas locations — nearly one-third of the entire federal nontactical fleet. Tracking the costs and maintenance needs for these cars and trucks is a critical task. Real-time data derived from modernized fleet management tools “enables GSA Fleet to save money by tackling maintenance issues early, before they can become the cause of a major repair,” says Crystal Philcox, assistant commissioner of GSA’s Office of Tr
The Supreme Court’s decision in United States ex rel. Polansky v. Executive Health Resources, Inc. , 143 S. Ct. 1720 (2023), has increased attention on arguments that the False Claims Act’s qui tam provisions may be unconstitutional. Although the majority’s opinion in the case did not address the issue, the dissent by Justice Thomas—joined in this regard by Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett—stated that “[t]here are substantial arguments that the qui tam device is inconsistent with Article II and t
A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical asset or system, which can be used for various purposes including simulation, analysis, and optimization. In the government sector , digital twins can be particularly useful in optimizing the performance of essential infrastructure, such as transportation networks, power grids, and water systems. Services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), such as AWS IoT Core , Amazon Simple Storage Service ( Amazon S3 ), and Amazon SageMaker can be used to collect
I recently had the honor of taking part in a thought-provoking panel discussion titled “ GovCon M&A: Unveiling the 2023 Landscape and Forecasts for 2024.” This illuminating webinar featuring Sharon Heaton, the Founder and CEO of sbLiftOff, and Kenneth Dodds, Vice President at Live Oak Bank, was a deep dive into the world of Government Contracting Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A).
Speaker: Jeff Dickinson - President and CEO of Railgistixs Transport, Supply Chain and Logistics Thought Leader
Despite the ongoing transformation of the supply chain and logistics landscape, the steadfast importance of carrier safety remains a core principle. From prioritizing preventative maintenance to optimizing fleet utilization, the fundamentals persist. If you’re overlooking and neglecting essential safety precautions today, this could result in expensive repairs and potential safety hazards in the future. 🚧 Join Jeff Dickinson for a conversation on how to mitigate risk, enforce compliance,
Every day, organizations across our country are impacted by cyber intrusions, many of which affect the delivery of essential services. Security professionals and business leaders alike recognize the need to protect their customers, employees and enterprises against this threat, which raises a simple but challenging question: Where to start? We at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency know that no organization can adopt every possible cybersecurity measure or solution, but every or
Last Friday, September 29, the FAR Council published a proposed rule that would update the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 2020 changes to rules on when small businesses must recertify their status in connection with orders under multiple-award contracts. The SBA size and socioeconomic recertification rules are convoluted — especially in situations where a small business becomes a large business by virtue of an M&A transaction and w
Available on Demand | October 3, 2023 | 1 Hour | 1 CPE One Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) program that has been widely adopted throughout the federal government also is one of its longest-established – the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. Introduced in 2012, the program provides a dynamic approach to strengthening the cybersecurity of government networks and systems.
Available on Demand | October 3, 2023 | 1 Hour | 1 CPE One Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) program that has been widely adopted throughout the federal government also is one of its longest-established – the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. Introduced in 2012, the program provides a dynamic approach to strengthening the cybersecurity of government networks and systems.
As the number and size of satellite constellations in orbit increase, satellite ground segment architectures must modernize to maintain agility, operational excellence, and economic viability. Virtualizing ground segment architectures can reduce dependency on mission-specific hardware components and drive forward this modernization. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud enables ground segment engineers to explore the possibilities of these architectures with services and features built specificall
The Department of Defense should look beyond existing communication protocols — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network — toward commercial solutions that support secure information sharing, say comms experts. To that end, the National Security Agency’s Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program offers agencies access to a range of best-of-breed products that can protect classified information and systems.
Malaysia has no shortage of scandals on the mismanagement of public funds. The Scorpene submarine affair and the more recent Littoral Combat Ship scandal centered around mismanagement within defence procurement. The infamous 1-Malaysia Development Berhad case (1MDB) – likely the largest global financial scandal to date – led to the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
On September 30, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $172 million settlement with Cigna Group resolving allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act (FCA). The DOJ alleged that Cigna defrauded Medicare by submitting inaccurate and untruthful diagnosis codes for its Medicare Advantage Plan enrollees. Cigna operates Medicare Advantage Organizations that offer Medicare Advantage Plans to Medicare beneficiaries.
Many public sector customers are interested in building secure, cost-effective, reliable, and highly performant applications. Technologies like containerization and serverless help customers migrate and modernize their applications. In this blog post, learn how public sector customers use offerings from Amazon Web Services (AWS) like AWS Lambda , Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) , Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) to build modern applications supporting diverse use case
The Treasury Department is gearing up to launch a blanket purchase agreement contract that will source and streamline enterprisewide cybersecurity services for its bureaus and offices. Known as the PROviding Treasury Enterprise Cybersecurity Technology & Services (PROTECTS) program, the vehicle is meant to “furnish the best cybersecurity services possible to Treasury, Treasury Bureaus and those federal government agencies who depend on Treasury for their financial management,” ac
Contractor employees will have enhanced whistleblower protections starting Nov. 6 after a years long effort to improve protections. In its final rule, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council made disclosing certain information permanently protected. Contractors and subcontractors are unable to be reimbursed for reprisal claim defense legal fees. Contractors and subcontractors must inform their employees about these whistleblower protections.
In this week’s episode we are exploring the remarkable progress both the private and public sector has made in their move to Zero Trust and the value of the human aspect when it comes to strategy, design and leveraging guidance from the federal government. Wayne Rodgers, Zero Trust Lead from the Department of Education reminds listeners one can’t throw a switch and have zero trust just emerge from the bits and bytes.
Justice and public safety agencies and their solution providers are building highly available, resilient, and secure applications on Amazon Web Services (AWS) at a rapid pace. As these solutions are built, AWS’s innovative features and security controls can help customers comply with the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy updates , and align with CJIS compliance not only in AWS GovCloud (US), but also in AWS (US) Commercial r
This week we had some actual fall temperatures at the SmallGovCon home offices. It’s finally pumpkin spice weather! We’ll be enjoying the fall weather and some football this weekend. Hope you enjoy the fall weather as well, along with some of top federal contracting headlines, including the continuing resolution to fund the government, new cyber rules, and the opening of the 8(a) portal.
Federal human resources employees now have a standard set of data and business elements, and performance measures to lean on as they modernize their hiring and other processes. The HR Line of Business and Quality Service Management Office completed this year-old effort earlier this summer to update the HR business reference architecture. Jeff Pollack, the human resources line of business program manager at the Office of Personnel Management, said these standards will bring more efficiency and be
The Brookhaven National Laboratory improperly managed its sensitive information, technology and other property, putting it at risk for potential unauthorized access, according to a new report from the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. The Energy IG found that the Long Island, N.Y. laboratory did not classify high-risk or sensitive property, including its information technology equipment, leaving it vulnerable to “loss, theft, or misuse of technologies, technical data, and infor
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case Tuesday that could make it harder for whistleblowers to claim they were retaliated against, with plaintiffs attorneys saying a decision that heightens evidentiary standards could cause whistleblowers to report directly to the government instead of their firms.
It’s the moment many have been waiting for–SBA has reopened its Certify portal to new applicants seeking admission into the 8(a) Business Development Program. SBA closed the portal to all new 8(a) Program applicants in early August 2023, following a decision from the Federal District Court of the Eastern District of Tennessee that took away applicant’s presumption of social disadvantage for certain designated groups.
The Air Force was 18 months into the Enterprise Cyber Capabilities acquisition and on the brink of making awards. The excitement over this potentially $5 billion multiple award indefinite delivery, indefinite quality contract among industry was a high as any opportunity on the street over the last few years. With a few strokes on the keyboard on Sept. 19, the Air Combat Command terminated EC2.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a pledge with more than a dozen healthcare systems Friday to share data in an effort to improve veterans’ care in or outside the VA system. “This pledge will improve Veteran health care by giving us seamless, immediate access to a patient’s medical history, which will help us make timely and accurate treatment decisions,” Shereef Elnahal , VA undersecretary for health, said in a written statement.
Available on Demand | October 5, 2023 | 1 Hour | Training Certificate Digital transformation has been a central premise of government at all levels tackling the job of ending reliance on legacy technology, upgrading systems and expanding services. Until recently, transformation efforts at the federal level focused on “lift-and-shift,” updating their digital systems or processes to make them better or more innovative, but they didn’t have the customer or end user or employee in mind while doing t
One key feature that makes Deltek Costpoint the top solution for government contractors is its ability to manage the segregation of direct and indirect costs , especially through its Project Account Groups. In this blog, we'll discuss Project Account Groups in Costpoint, what they are, their importance, and how to use them to segregate costs properly.
“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be. The post Books As a Proxy for Free Thought appeared first on Art of Procurement.
Federal contracting is more than just a business—it's a journey filled with twists and turns. One of those twists? Government shutdowns. But here at USFCR, we see these challenges as stepping stones to growth. So, let's talk about the recent 45-day spending bill and what it means for federal contractors.
Source: [link] The European Commission has published the final version of the EU model contractual AI clauses to pilot in procurements of AI, which have been ‘developed for pilot use in the procurement of AI with the aim to establish responsibilities for trustworthy, transparent, and accountable development of AI technologies between the supplier and the public organisation.
If you have an upcoming Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) estimating system audit , you need to plan for it, and the sooner, the better. Don't wait until the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) begins sending you its requests for information. But how do you prepare? Perhaps a place to start is first understanding what this audit entails and knowing what DCAA may cite as common findings.
This is a guest post by Ari Jóhannesson, chief executive officer of Andes, a cloud infrastructure and security company, in collaboration with the AWS Institute from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Learn more about Iceland’s digital transformation journey in this AWS Institute video series. The Icelandic Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs launched an ambitious initiative to accelerate the digital transformation of public services in Iceland in 2019.
The UK Law Commission recently proposed drastic reform to section 67 of the English Arbitration Act 1996 that deals with the challenge of an award on the ground of lack of substantive jurisdiction in an English seated arbitration. The Law Commission’s First Consultation Paper published in September 2022 initially recommended the challenge under section 67 to take the form of an appeal.
Two Chicago residents are asking the nation's top court to declare that a 75-year, $1 billion contract leasing the city's metered parking system to a private operator has created an unlawful monopoly the company is using to significantly raise prices.
On September 29, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of the Whistleblower posted a Notice of Covered Action (NoCA) for an enforcement action taken against the 3M Company over allegations that a subsidiary company based in China violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The NoCA signals that the SEC is now accepting whistleblower award claims for the case.
“When you can demonstrate short-term success and communicate it – both inside and outside the company – it helps to. The post Simple Steps for Growing Supplier Diversity appeared first on Art of Procurement.
For the Department of Energy, new technologies are playing a growing role in the agency’s myriad critical responsibilities, which range from overseeing the country’s network of national research labs to managing the Power Marketing Administrations that helps supply hydropower to more than half of U.S. states. The result? Much more complexity. For example, artificial intelligence could impact a wide range of department operations, Energy CIO Ann Dunkin told FedScoop in a recent interview.
In what can best be described as a tsunami of cybersecurity regulation, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council—consisting of the Department of Defense (DoD), General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)—issued two proposed rules on October 2, 2023.
On September 28, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had reached a $8.1 million settlement with Boeing over allegations that the aerospace company violated the False Claims Act (FCA). The settlement resolves allegations that Boeing failed to comply with certain contractual manufacturing specifications in contracts with the U.S. Navy to manufacture the V-22 Osprey, a tiltrotor military aircraft.
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