DoDBuzz: Army Goofed On FMTV Award

[unhappycamper]

Army Goofed On FMTV Award
By Colin Clark Monday, December 14th, 2009 11:48 am
Posted in International, Land, Policy

UPDATED: Army Leaders “Reviewing” GAO Decisions and BAE Comments On Unique Cab Design

In yet another strike at the heart of the Defense Department’s acqui­si­tion sys­tem, th Government Accountability Office issued a rul­ing today that the Army made fun­da­men­tal mis­takes when it awarded the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) con­tract to Oshkosh.

In the words of one ana­lyst who closely watched this $3 bil­lion com­pe­ti­tion, “the Army con­ducted an incom­plete, unpro­fes­sional review of the pro­pos­als from BAE Systems, Oshkosh and Navistar. First, it wrongly stated that all three offer­ors had equal, excel­lent pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties. Then, on that basis, it picked the win­ner solely on the basis of price, with­out a rig­or­ous test as to the real­ism of Oshkosh’s very low bid. So a com­pany that has never built the prod­uct beat the incum­bent by bid­ding 30 per­cent below the cur­rent ask­ing price — on a build-​​to-​​print con­tract! This is the sort of trav­esty the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act was passed to pre­vent,” said Loren Thompson, defense con­sul­tant and ana­lyst at the Lexington Institute.

BAE, incum­bent maker of the FMTV, argued pub­licly that Oshkosh did not pos­sess the exper­tise or expe­ri­ence to build the FMTV with­out a high degree of risk to the tax­payer. In par­tic­u­lar, BAE pointed to its patented cab design, which allows the addi­tion of armor when needed, as a capa­bil­ity Oshkosh lacked and would have to rein­vent or license from BAE. The pro­tes­tors also argued that Oshkosh’s bid price– 30 per­cent lower than theirs — was unsustainable.

“We are con­fi­dent that our skilled and expe­ri­enced work­force in Texas and Michigan will put us in the very best posi­tion to com­pete suc­cess­fully for con­tin­ued FMTV pro­duc­tion, espe­cially since the new Long-​​Term Armor Strategy cab is our design. Our cur­rent bridge takes pro­duc­tion through 2010, but deci­sions need to be made by this spring to sus­tain unin­ter­rupted FMTV pro­duc­tion into 2011. Our work­force remains focused and com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing our men and women in uni­form with the world’s safest, most reli­able medium tac­ti­cal vehi­cles,” Dennis Morris, pres­i­dent of BAE Systems Global Tactical Systems, said in a Monday statement.

GAO agreed that the Army got the eval­u­a­tion wrong. “Our review of the record led us to con­clude that the Army’s eval­u­a­tion was flawed with regard to the eval­u­a­tion of Oshkosh’s pro­posal under the capa­bil­ity eval­u­a­tion fac­tor, and the eval­u­a­tion of Navistar’s past per­for­mance,” said Michael Golden, GAO’s man­ag­ing asso­ciate gen­eral coun­sel for pro­cure­ment law. But GAO did not agree with the pro­tes­tors on price. “We also denied a num­ber of Navistar’s and BAE’s chal­lenges to the award to Oshkosh, includ­ing chal­lenges to the eval­u­a­tion of Oshkosh’s price,” Golden said in his statement.


Rest of article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/12/14/gao-upholds-fmtv-protests/?wh=wh