House marks appropriations bill
Filed under: Bell, Boeing, Congress, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., development program, logistics, production program
The House Appropriations Committee marked the FY09 budget before taking their August recess. See a story here. The Army’s struggling Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program was marked to delete 13 aircraft, and the Navy’s Presidential Helo was also decremented. The House also ordered that consideration of jobs would be a criteria for the source selection of the KC-45 tanker. Boeing won its protest of the award to Northrop-Grumman and EADS and forced DoD to reconsider the contract. The Senate needs to also mark the bill and then there will be a Conference mark up as well.
SecDef says KC-45 meddling by Congress may provoke retaliation
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, logistics
According to this story during testimony about the FY09 Defense budget Secretary of Defense Gates warned that adding a requirement to contract awards for US jobs would only provoke retaliation by US allies in Europe and Asia. Currently Federal procurement law does not have increasing or protecting US jobs as a consideration for evaluating and awarding contracts. Congress can certainly add that to the law, and some have mooted they will, but it would come at a price. The US defense industry is now dependent on non-US companies for many parts and products. US allies are also dependent on US companies for a large amount of their systems as they do not have the capability to produce them. Any attempt by the US government to prevent foreign companies from competing could backfire and reduce the market for US companies. As we have stated here many times with the consilidation in the US industry in the Nineties it is hard to get decent competition for these kind of procurements. Only Boeing, EADS and Russian companies could have bid on it; McDonald Douglas is long gone, so Congress needed to expect this kind of situation.
The South celebrates the KC-45
Filed under: Alabama, Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, commercial aviation, development program, logistics
As reported here in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Northrop Grumman continues to point out that the KC-45 contract if it survives the Boeing protest will bring lots of jobs to the US. Especially to the South. Not only is the main plant going to be at Mobile, AL; but this article shows that parts and components will be made at various Northrop plants in Georgia. A lot of the work will also be accomplished in Florida. Read more
BRAC process continues
Filed under: Archer Western Contractors, BRAC, Contract Awards, production program
This article describes the start of construction of a new facility in Charlottesville, VA to handle a DoD group moving from DC. This is all part of the last round of BRAC. One of the key parts of that round was to consolidate like agencies and facilities near each other. Here an intelligence group is moving to be near another one. It also probably fulfills another goal which is to move people from leased facilities into government ones. Either way it adds a large construction contract and 1000 jobs to a rather nice part of VA.
Even small contracts make a difference
Filed under: Contract Awards, U.S. Army, logistics, production program
Here is a little article about the Army buying safety gloves. Even this small contract, no value given, will allow the company to hire more workers and invest in machinery. Of course the problem with these kind of contracts is unless the supplier can find new commercial customers or get a continuous stream of DoD orders the jobs will end in a set period of time. Read more
Senator’s Shelby view of the KC-45 contract
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
This article in The Financial Times by Senator Shelby sums up the view from Alabama on the KC-45 contract award. He stresses the fact that the Air Force utilized the proper DoD regulations and instructions on requirements and source selection. Unfortunately for Boeing there is no standard for number of US jobs in these kind of selections.
Reaction to the KC-X award
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
Here are some links that are commenting on the win by Northrop Grumman and EADS.
http://www.aero-news.net/ - KC-45A Wins Deal Over Boeing’s KC-767 Note: I think no matter what aircraft was chosen it would be called the KC-45A.
Wichita, KS News on MSNBC - Key phrase from Sen Roberts of KS: “”I am deeply troubled by the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-X tanker to a French company that has never built a tanker in its history. We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers. I can not believe we would create French jobs in place of Kansas jobs.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer - “Tanker award caps tumultuous period” - Good round up of the history of the KC-X program.
Leeham Company LLC Analysis by Scott Hamilton - “Boeing will be out of the tanker business for the next 20-40 years if it loses the KC-45A
award, its spokesman predicted, which helps explain why Boeing is fighting so hard to win the competition.”
Oh yeah, how they feel at Northrop Grummand and EADS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX5oqEfAydg
Kansas pulls for Boeing
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics, production program
Another article in a local paper, here the Kansas City Star, about the economic effect of the KC-X contract. The article spells out the economic effect of the win to the Wichita, KS area. Similar articles have been running in the Alabama papers about how great the win by Northrop-Grumman and EADS would be to the Mobile area. Read more
Jesse Jackson editorilizes in favor of Boeing for KC-X
Filed under: Boeing, Commentary, Contract Awards, EADS, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
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 of the month. Read more
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