MaSSSoftech

Four solution providers are among five companies awarded indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts on a $418.5 million IT purchasing project with the U.S. Army and other federal agencies.

Solution providers GTSI, CDO Technologies, Lowry Computer Products and Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC ) Information Technology join vendor Intermec Technologies as the winning bidders for the contract.

The Army Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS) contract for Automatic Identification Technology (AIT-IV) solutions includes mobile and handheld computing devices -- connected to wireless networks and enterprise applications -- to capture and process data from bar codes, item unique identification (IUID) and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The contract replaces a single-source contract that had been in place and allows each of the five companies to vie for a piece of the $418.5 million pie. "As one of the largest solutions contracts in the company's history and building on our extensive track record in the area of automatic identification technology, we look forward to working with the Army and other departments to help them build sophisticated asset management and supply chain solutions to meet their critical mission needs," said Jim Leto, GTSI's CEO, in a statement. "[We] are pleased to be a part of the future development and deployment of automatic identification technology solutions. By automating or applying technology applications to what was previously a purely manual task, customers will have realtime visibility of assets throughout their work centers and storage areas."

AIT-IV aims to design a common, integrated solution for logistics tracking, locating and monitoring of assets and processes within the Department of Defense, United States Coast Guard and other federal agencies.

The goal of the project is to reduce administrative and logistics costs by increasing data accuracy, speeding the collection and transmission of data, and making the entire data entry/collection process more efficient.

GTSI, based in Herndon, Va., plans to work with several partners, including small, disadvantaged businesses, to help fulfill the contract worldwide, according to the solution provider.

Meanwhile, Dayton, Ohio-based CDO Technologies, along with partners A2B Tracking, ASC Software, Central State University, HCI Integrated Solutions,Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Naniq, Vantedge, Williams Software and Zebra Technologies, also will provide the agencies with integrated automatic ID and data collection solutions, systems integration and engineering services for logistics and asset management.

"AIT-IV will be the cornerstone of the most sophisticated supply chain systems the DoD has ever undertaken -- these systems require the seamless integration of the most advanced automatic ID and communications technologies and services available," said Don Ertel, vice president of CDO Technologies' systems and technology solutions division, in a statement.

The contract includes a three-year base period, followed by a two-year option and a four-year maintenance-only option.

Lowry's president and CEO, Michael Lowry, said his company is honored to receive the contract. "The award of this contract continues to validate Lowry's ability to deliver the real value of leading-edge AIDC solutions to a wide range of government agencies," he said in a statement.