After meeting with DoD and the US Air Force to discuss the new tanker RFP due to the GAO upholding their protest, Boeing is now saying that without significantly more time to prepare a proposal they may have to drop out. The new schedule is for the Boeing and Northrop Grumman teams [...]

In a contract that has fallen to the back burner recently due to KC-45 events, the Air Force announced that they would complete the recompete for the CSAR-X by September. Contract award would be soon after. The CSAR-X contract to replace the HH-60 PaveHawk aircraft was originally awarded to Boeing with [...]

Rumors are swirling that Boeing may not bid on the new contract for the KC-45. See an article here. Supposedly Boeing is piqued that the new requirements supposedly favor Northrop Grumman and EADS and will not submit a bid. If there is only one bid it may require the whole process to [...]

The GAO released a report stating that in their rush to purchase Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles the services may have set themselves up for some long term costs that were avoidable. See the story here. No kidding. The USMC and Army were thrown money and direction by Congress to purchase [...]

The GAO released a summary of why they upheld the protest by Boeing over the KC-45 award. See an article here. The chief reason was due to the Air Force’s failure to properly apply the criteria for source selection. Of the several reasons listed two ones that stand out is that they [...]

EADS shares are down in Europe, and I am sure Northrop Grumman’s will also drop today. See this article. The market is assuming that the Air Force will follow the GAO’s recommendation and reopen the competition. EADS performance has been heavily affected by the delays to the A380 and the scandals with [...]

In this article entitled Boeing Wins Tanker Protest, But Drama Is Far From Over, the Seattle Times states:
The saga of the Air Force refueling tanker contract is not over by a long shot, though Boeing won a huge victory Wednesday when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) comprehensively backed the company’s protest of the initial contract [...]

The GAO ruled today in Boeing’s favor on the KC-45 protest.  They decided that the Air Force failed to properly apply its source selection criteria and did not calculate some of Boeing’s costs correctly.  See a story here.  The GAO recommended that the competition be reopened.  This is what happened with the CSAR-X contract, ironically [...]

This article is a good summary of the KC-45 contract. The GAO is supposed to rule on Boeing’s protest within the next two weeks. One would have to bet that they will disallow the protest. There is a chance though, that somehow the Air Force screwed up in how they applied the [...]

The GAO testified again to Congress on how DoD acquisition programs are way behind schedule and way over budget. Imagine that? This has been a running refrain for the last forty years or so. One of the issues is that the government workforce managing these programs has gotten smaller while demands have [...]

As part of their work on the defense budget the HASC is going to ask the GAO to investigate whether there are too many protests. See the story here. As we have previously discussed ad nauseum there is little disincentive for a losing contractor to protest. At the best they win, and [...]

As part of the beginning of the mark-up of the FY09 President’s budget by the various House and Senate committees Congress is beginning to debate the future of the KC-45. According to this article, Congressman Young from Florida has suggested that the US Air Force split award the tanker contract. This would mean [...]

In this story it is clear that the Democratic members of Congress will interfere with the KC-45 award, no matter what the GAO says. The House is moving to defund the program if the GAO opens up the contract. Mr. Murtha misspoke when he said that the GAO would overturn the award. [...]

According to The Hill Boeing is using its lobbyists to push Members of Congress to receive a briefing from the CIA on “foreign companies” using questionable means in their attempts to win contracts. See the article here. Of note the only two Congressman to talk on the record about this were Tiahart from [...]

As part of the source selection for any program the Government does an Independent Cost Estimate (ICE) for the various proposals. If it is for an ACAT ID program the OSD Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) does it, and if it is ACAT IC then the service’s cost people do it. Boeing is [...]

This article makes it seem that this is something unique, but it isn’t. The winner has to stop work on the contract as DoD cannot pay them. They can certainly proceed at risk, which some companies do in this situation, but on a contract this size it makes sense not to. The [...]

In their regular annual review of weapon system acquisition the GAO figured out the current programs are on average 2 years behind schedule and a few billion over initial budget estimates. See the story here. Shocking!! This has always been the trend with these large systems. The initial cost estimates and [...]

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch has a good article summarizing the protest process. See the story here. It stresses that the GAO will overturn only if they find that the acquiring agency did not apply their criteria correctly during the source selection process, and even if they uphold the protest, the most likely result [...]

The GAO had done a study of how DoD is using ID/IQ and time and material contracts. Now DoD is implementing some of the recommendations from the study. See the article here. GAO felt that the DoD agencies were utilizing these contracts as they were easier to award and then adjust based [...]

As expected Northrop Grumman filed a motion with the GAO to dismiss the Boeing protest of the KC-45 award. Most likely that will not happen, but it does allow Northrop and EADS to get some information on the record. See the story here. The gist of Northrop Grumman’s argument is that Boeing [...]

Press reports indicate that Boeing filed their protest with the GAO today. The key complaint is that the requirements were changed to accomodate the larget KC-30 aircraft. Key quote is “Emotion did not play into this,” McGraw said of Boeing’s decision to file a protest. “We were deliberate in this process and we [...]

According to press reports Boeing will protest the KC-45 award to Northrop-Grumman and EADS. They are supposedly going to the General Accounting Office (GAO), which is the middle level. The lowest is the agency making the decision, here probably Air Force Material Command, and the highest is straight to Federal Court. They [...]

In another demonstration of why moving the headquarters of their company to Chicago was a good idea, Boeing gets Jesse Jackson to publish an editorial in The Washington Times in favor of them winning the KC-X contract. See the essay here. The Air Force is supposed to announce the winner by the end [...]

The GAO wrote a report at Senate behest about performance on multi-year aircraft procurement contracts. See Business Week here. In the three they looked at, C-17, AH-64 and F/A-18, all cost more than original projections and did not deliver the savings hoped.