By Victoria Disman, Director, Professional Services Consulting
With a mission to design, build, deliver and maintain ships and systems on time and on cost, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is “the force behind the fleet of the U.S. Navy.” And with procurement that exceeds $70 billion annually, it stands to reason that NAVSEA required a robust procurement system that could handle the needs of the entire fleet. The answer? An electronic platform for acquiring support services, known as SeaPort.
History of SeaPort
SeaPort was born from a challenge. Procurement of Professional Support Services (PSS), worth more than $70 billion in contracts annually, was not integrated across Commands. In addition, PSS used a multitude of different processes for procuring services and did not leverage corporate buying habits or e-business. Services were predominantly procured via level of effort rather than performance-based terms causing greater expenditures that did not result in optimal outcomes.
That problem drove NAVSEA to take on the SeaPort project, an “Amazon.com-like” environment for the planning, generation, solicitation, award, administration, monitoring, and closeout of professional support services for the Command. SeaPort would also capture business intelligence to support improved decision making, acquisition planning, funds management, and magnification of corporate knowledge.
In 2017, Octo was pleased to become an integral part of the development of SeaPort in support of NAVSEA’s important mission. Under the Navy SeaPort Enterprise Acquisition System Development and Sustainment contract, Octo implemented and maintained SeaPort Next Generation (NxG), the improved enterprise software system that supported an award of a new Multiple Award Contracts (MAC) vehicle and now provides Navy acquisition, procurement, and task order management that enables NAVSEA to meet customer demands. The new platform was developed using a combination of Microsoft technologies, COTS products, and programming technologies (C#, .NET/MVC, SQL Server, SAFileUP, ABCPdf, Telerik).
Today’s SeaPort
Fast forward. As part of ongoing support work, Octo continues to update SeaPort software and infrastructure. We deliver enhancements in response to emerging customer needs and provide production system monitoring, security management, and support of operating system and patch maintenance.
The SeaPort program has gone through a number of significant transformations and has successfully implemented many mission-critical initiatives. SeaPort has strengthened its security posture by introducing security measures, such as rolling out a two-factor authentication mechanism to thousands of vendor users and switching to DoD PIV certificate authentication for our entire government user community. As a result of implementing these measures and going through a robust and challenging Authorization To Operate (ATO) process, SeaPort was able to submit all required documentation and obtain Risk Management Framework (RMF)-based ATO.
Three major functional enhancement releases have been deployed to the SeaPort NxG platform to improve user experience and support evolving business process, resulting in 63 total major releases over the lifetime of the solution. In March 2020, we rolled out the upgrade of SeaPort infrastructure and systems and migrated legacy SeaPort-e and SeaPort-o data, including thousands of users and millions of procurement data records to the new SeaPort NxG platform, allowing the Navy to administer all SeaPort MACs in the same portal and consolidating user access to both legacy and NxG contract awards while reducing the hardware footprint of the combined systems.
Results that matter
Octo has developed and deployed multiple successful SeaPort application releases, improving performance and expanding the features and services available through the portal. As a result, SeaPort now provides great cost savings to the government, reduces procurement action lead time, supports expanded competition and small business participation, and offers a platform for long-range procurement planning while providing paperless auditability and transparency. Adoption of the SeaPort system has yielded a fast, easy, transparent, and cost-efficient process to acquire Navy PSS.
NAVSEA’s SeaPort success
NAVSEA’s foresight enabled them to see beyond the problem and into the possible. SeaPort continues to help the NAVSEA team meet mission priorities and objectives, including:
- Delivering ships and submarines on time
- Improving warfighting capability of ships and systems
- Bolstering cybersecurity
- Directly streamlining processes and reducing timelines
- Making every dollar count
- Leveraging digital tools, technologies, and data analytics
- Collaborating, knowledge sharing, and problem solving
Octo is proud to be able to support these priorities and help NAVSEA move forward as it serves those who serve and protect our country. For more information on NAVSEA or how Octo can help your Federal Government organization reach objectives, reach out to a member of Team Octo.