Aquilent Win for Improved University-Affiliated Research Center (UARC) Contracting Process; Contract Modification to Leverage Government-Owned SeaPort for UARC Contracting.

LAUREL, Md. -- Aquilent, Inc. announced today the execution of a contract modification by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to leverage the Aquilent-developed and government-owned SeaPort-e portal for its University-Affiliated Applied Research Center's (UARC) contracts office.

The Navy has ongoing strategic relationships with four university affiliated research centers (UARCs) that conduct advanced R&D initiatives in the areas of defense science, technology, and engineering. The UARCs operate under multi-task delivery order contracts issued to perform work for Navy sponsors and other DoD entities.

NAVSEA serves as the primary DoD administrative sponsor for these UARCs and administers their primary delivery order contracts. NAVSEA currently processes and awards many UARC delivery orders and associated funding modifications. The current NAVSEA UARC delivery order process is mostly a manual system requiring labor intensive data entry, coordination, tracking and review among the UARCs, sponsors and various participating NAVSEA business and program offices. Web-based automation of the NAVSEA UARC delivery order processes would improve efficiency and timeliness of delivery order awards and provide better UARC customer tracking and metrics capabilities.

NAVSEA and Aquilent will work together to configure SeaPort-e to automate the NAVSEA UARC delivery order processes. SeaPort-e's task order management and vendor portal capabilities will provide a means for the sponsor and UARC to engage directly with each other in an electronic, web-based environment. This will streamline the process of awarding new and modifying existing delivery orders, and will provide the capability to track and report on UARC activities in real-time.

"SeaPort-e has illustrated the benefit of combining e-Procurement tools with innovative acquisition processes," said David Fout, Aquilent's President and CEO. "The UARC project is a great example of industry and government working together to leverage successful investments. We are proud to partner with NAVSEA on additional DoD e-Procurement initiatives."

Aquilent's partnership with NAVSEA began in 2001 with the rollout of the SeaPort pilot to NAVSEA Headquarters in just 69 days. The SeaPort contract vehicle and associated portal solution generated a combined savings of $55 million in its first two years of operation. In 2003, Aquilent added support for the SeaPort-e MAC contract vehicle and its business process requirements. The cumulative success of the SeaPort/SeaPort-e solution led the Navy's Virtual SYSCOM to recommend expanding SeaPort's usage Navy-wide in 2005. To-date, SeaPort has processed approximately $10B in procurements for the Navy and is accessed by over 6000 users and 2500 companies.

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