AAMAC

Overview

On Sept. 4, 2024, the Department of Defense (DOD) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) published a Sources Sought Notice synopsis to identify and determine qualified sources who can help the CDAO build a competitive, adaptive and responsive ecosystem of digital products and services providers around the largest DOD data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Advana.

The DOD’s CDAO is the lead organization responsible for accelerating the DOD’s adoption of data, analytics and AI to generate decision advantage, from the boardroom to the battlefield. The DOD CDAO intends to establish a new multiple award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (MA-IDIQ) contract in support of the Advancing Artificial Intelligence Multiple Award Contract (AAMAC) program.

The AAMAC IDIQ will support potential projects that leverage the CDAO’s and the DOD’s enterprise data, analytics, and/or AI capabilities to enhance decision-making processes and practices for any DOD customer(s), as well as provide the data engineering, data analytics tools, shared services and infrastructure for the CDAO Advana program at the platform layer and below.

Since the initial sources sought in early September, CDAO held an Advana industry day on Sept. 18, 2024, and released a first draft request for proposal (RFP) for the AAMAC on Nov. 20, 2024, followed by an amended first draft RFP on Feb. 2, 2025.

While the final RFP is still under development, Baker Tilly has performed a detailed review of all available draft solicitation materials and summarized the latest details below.

Ordering period

AAMAC is valued at $15 billion. Its period of performance is five years base plus five-year options. The award type is an agency IDIQ, and DOD will make multiple awards. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services) which has a Small Business Administration (SBA) size standard of $34 million.

Who can bid

AAMAC is subject to a partial small business set-aside, in that IDIQ awards will be made under an Unrestricted (UR) Pool and Small Business (SB) Pool, based on successful offerors’ business size. By default, offerors will be evaluated for award under the UR Pool, and all small business awardees in the UR Pool will also be automatically awarded under the SB Pool.

The government will be utilizing a Highest Technically Rated Offeror (HTRO) self-scoring methodology, which requires offerors to score themselves as well as substantiate their self-score.

It should be noted that an offeror can only submit one proposal in response to the solicitation and if an offeror submitted as a member of a joint venture, they cannot submit separately as a standalone prime.

Proposal format

The current AAMAC draft RFP (Feb. 2, 2025) Section L “Instructions” for AAMAC state that an offeror’s proposal shall comprise of the following three volumes consisting of:

Volume I – Technical

• Work sample cover sheet
• Work samples
• Self-scoring matrix
• Cross-reference matrix
• Certifications

Volume II – Small business

• Small business participation commitment document
• Small business subcontracting plan

Volume III – Contract documentation

• Offeror company information
• Model contract
• Representations and certifications
• Amendments
• Organizational conflict of interest
• Organizational structure change history

Self-score matrix and work samples

While Volumes II and III consist of many of the familiar administrative items we typically see with an RFP response, Volume I – Technical, is where offerors will spend the most time preparing to ensure they are maximizing their score and submitting a compliant proposal with enough substantiation evidence.

The Technical Volume’s self-score matrix consists of 18 unique scoring criterion with a maximum total possible score of 97,500. The scoring criterion and associated maximum points can be found in the table below.

AAMAC scoring table

When it comes to scoring, the first 15 of the 18 scoring criterion are related to “work samples” (i.e., relevant project experience). Work samples are defined as “contracts/orders” which demonstrate the offerors technical capability and experience. Offerors can submit up to 12 work samples with their proposal response that can be utilized across multiple criterion. Additionally, of the 12 work samples, large businesses offerors may include up to two subcontracts, while small business offerors may include up to five subcontracts. This caveat is further explained by the Category 1 and Category 2 definitions of work samples below.

Category 1: Prime offeror work samples shall be used. To be used, the offeror shall have acted as the prime contractor for the submitted work sample. For joint ventures (JV), the work of any JV member may be utilized.

Category 2: Subcontractor work samples may be used. To be used, the prime offeror shall have acted as a subcontractor for the submitted work sample.

Offerors can maximize their scoring by identifying work samples that meet the minimum recency criteria of at least six months of performance or completed within four years of the solicitation’s release date and address as many of the 15 work sample technical area scoring criterion definitions outlined in the AAMAC RFP.

The remaining three scoring criterion are scored on whether the offeror has a valid ISO/IEC 27001, CMMI-SVC Level 3, and CMMI-DEV Level 3 certifications.

Other considerations

While AAMAC may seem like a typical self-evaluation, scorecard proposal, there are several unique considerations that offerors should be aware of before preparing their proposals.

Contractor teaming arrangements

While the requirements and limitations of teaming arrangements are not explicitly defined in the latest draft RFP, the government has stated via the latest SAM.gov announcement—and again within the industry feedback Q&A responses—that, “Based on the preponderance of the initial draft RFP feedback, teaming for purposes of enhancing a prime offeror’s score for an AAMAC IDIQ is no longer allowed.”

However, this appears to contradict Section L of the latest draft RFP that still states “for joint ventures (JV), the work of any JV member may be utilized” as a work sample under Category 1. It remains to be seen what requirements and limitations AAMAC will have on teaming.

Cost and/or price

The government has elected to not evaluate price or cost at the time of establishing AAMAC IDIQ contracts, as authorized by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.304(c)(1)(ii)(A) due to the broadly defined scope of AAMAC, as well as the emergent nature of the data management, analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities to be acquired.

Burden of proof

The government has made it clear that the burden of proof for substantiating points in the offeror’s self-score rests with the offeror, and not the government. Offerors are advised to provide sufficient substantiation documentation to validate all points claimed.

Cross-reference matrix

A cross-reference matrix, a separate RFP attachment, will need to be completed by the offeror to clearly identify the exact location of the substantiating data within the work samples submitted.

Expected number of awards

The government intends to award IDIQ contracts to each and all qualifying offerors under the UR Pool and SB Pool. The number of contracts to be awarded under each competitive pool is not known at this time.

Status (open/closed)

AAMAC is currently in the planning and development stage. While no official proposed timeline was released with the Feb. 2 draft RFP materials, the government did allude to an estimated final RFP release date of March 31, 2025, in the Q&A responses.

Potential offerors would be wise to start reviewing the draft solicitation materials, identifying possible work samples, assessing their maximum scoring ability, collecting substantiation documentation and beginning to prepare their proposals.

How can Baker Tilly help?

With the upcoming release of the final solicitation, many companies are working diligently to understand the RFP requirements and how to prepare qualified, high-scoring proposals within the allotted timeframe. Timely, accurate and responsive proposals will be critical to scoring high and capturing this highly coveted IDIQ contract.

• Baker Tilly stands ready to assist in the following areas:
• Bid/no bid evaluation
• Scorecard/RFP readiness
• Proposal support and preparation
• Proposal compliance assessment (red team reviews)

Baker Tilly is familiar with the self-scoring methodology employed for complex governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC) vehicles like Alliant 2, Alliant 3, HCaTS, ASTRO, CIO-SP4, OASIS, OASIS+ and NASA SEWP VI. These types of acquisitions place maximum burden on the offeror to prove that they have the requisite experience and capabilities to meet government requirements.

Baker Tilly has assisted leading government contractors through the relevant experience review process, facilitating the successful selection of the right combination of projects to achieve an organization’s maximum score. Baker Tilly has also advised during the pre-proposal stage on teaming and partnering arrangements should it appear an offeror’s ability to achieve a successful award is in doubt. Whether an offeror is seeking support in making a bid/no-bid decision or would like assistance with ‘soup-to-nuts’ proposal preparation, we offer tailor-made assistance to address your unique needs.