Avum wins $61m Army contracting software award

Avum has received a $61.05 million US Army contract to modernise the Virtual Contracting Enterprise software environment, including the restructuring of existing business intelligence applications into a microservices architecture and the deployment of a new secure contracting capability.

The firm-fixed-price award covers software sustainment, additional capability delivery, technical refactoring, and the development of supporting functions for the Army’s contracting operations. Work will be performed in Agoura Hills, California, with completion scheduled for 3 November 2031.

Army Contracting Command at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, awarded contract W519TC-27-C-A019 following a competitive procurement in which six bids were received through an online solicitation.

The agreement has a total announced value of $61,053,453. Initial funding of $2,818,452 from fiscal 2027 Army operations and maintenance appropriations was obligated at award, providing the first identified allocation against the wider contract.

The Virtual Contracting Enterprise, known as VCE, is an established collection of digital applications supporting Army acquisition and contracting processes. Its functions include managing contract documentation, providing business intelligence, and supporting the administrative activities associated with procurement.

Army contracting involves several stages, from identifying requirements and preparing solicitations to evaluating bids, approving awards, modifying contracts, and maintaining records throughout their operating life.

Each stage generates information that may be required by contracting officers, programme managers, auditors, and other authorised personnel. The systems supporting these processes must maintain accurate records while applying the access and approval requirements associated with government procurement.

VCE includes applications such as the Paperless Contract File module, which is used to store, access, and route procurement documents for review and approval. The Army has used the system as part of its transition from paper-based records towards digital contracting workflows.

The Army Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement requires contracting officers to use VCE tools throughout the acquisition process to support visibility and management of contract-specific information and documents.

The regulation also identifies circumstances in which records maintained by other applications remain authoritative. Documents held within the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment or the Federal Procurement Data System may remain in those systems as the official records, avoiding unnecessary duplication within the Paperless Contract File.

Those arrangements create requirements for information consistency between different applications. Contracting personnel may need access to information generated in one system while carrying out work through another, with the applicable system of record retaining responsibility for the authoritative document or data.

Avum’s contract includes technical refactoring of the VCE business intelligence suite into a modern microservices architecture. The work involves restructuring existing software rather than simply replacing the user interface through which contracting personnel access information.

In a microservices architecture, application functions are organised into smaller services connected through defined interfaces. Individual functions can be developed, maintained, and updated separately, provided their interactions and data requirements remain compatible.

The approach can reduce the extent to which changes to one application component require the modification of unrelated functions. However, it also introduces requirements for managing communication between services, monitoring their operation, and maintaining data consistency across the complete environment.

Refactoring therefore requires an understanding of the dependencies within the existing applications. Engineers must determine how functions exchange information, which data is shared, and how changes to individual components affect the wider contracting workflow.

Existing software may contain functions that depend on particular databases, interfaces, or processing sequences. Separating those functions into individual services can require changes to the way information is accessed and how transactions are managed.

Contracting records create particular requirements because the software must preserve information needed for approvals, reporting, and subsequent audit. A change to the application architecture must not compromise the integrity of records or the ability to establish how procurement decisions were processed.

Business intelligence functions also depend on consistent information. Reporting applications may combine data from multiple contracting activities to provide management views of procurement volumes, processing times, contract status, and other operational measures.

The Army has previously used VCE business intelligence tools to examine contracting activity and support management decisions. Modernising those applications requires the reporting functions to remain aligned with the underlying data and the processes that generate it.

Data definitions, access permissions, and the treatment of records from different sources must be maintained as the architecture changes. Where information is transferred between applications, engineers must establish how the receiving service identifies, validates, and processes the relevant data.

Software sustainment forms another element of the awarded work. Existing VCE functions must continue to support contracting operations while new capabilities are developed and the architecture is restructured.

Maintaining operational software during modernisation requires coordination between development, testing, and deployment activities. Changes must be evaluated against the existing functions and interfaces before they are introduced into the production environment.

The contract also covers deployment of a secure contracting capability, although the Army has not disclosed its detailed operating requirements, security classification, hosting arrangement, or accreditation process.

Under the existing Army Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, VCE is expressly prohibited from being used for classified contracts and documents. The newly awarded secure capability must therefore be distinguished from the current regulatory treatment of the established VCE environment.

The contract announcement does not establish that Avum will introduce classified contracting functions or that the Army has changed those existing restrictions. Further technical and regulatory decisions may be required depending on the intended scope of the new capability.

Information security remains part of the software engineering requirements for government procurement systems. Contracting applications must apply the appropriate permissions and controls to information processed by their users, with the precise standards determined by the system’s operating environment and accreditation requirements.

Avum’s published services include systems engineering, enterprise integration, software development, business intelligence, and data visualisation. The California company has operated since 1991 and provides technology services to government and commercial customers.

Its experience includes digital acquisition and contracting applications, an area in which software functions must be developed alongside established procurement procedures and administrative requirements.

Changes to those procedures can affect the information required from users, the approval sequence for particular actions, and the records that must be maintained. Software development must therefore accommodate applicable business rules as well as the technical architecture.

The Army’s contract covers a period extending into November 2031, providing for the continued support of existing applications and the introduction of the specified modernisation activities. The public award does not identify detailed delivery milestones for individual software components.

Nor does it establish that Avum will replace every application within the Army’s contracting environment. The stated scope is focused on VCE sustainment, refactoring of its business intelligence suite, additional capability delivery, and the new secure contracting function.

The five-year programme will require the existing applications to remain supported while development and integration work progresses. Completion of the contracted activities is currently estimated for 3 November 2031, with individual systems subject to the applicable technical requirements and acceptance procedures.