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.
KC-45 protest summary report released
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics
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 gave EADS credit for exceeding a requirement when they should not have, and rather than just noting the risk associated with the Boeing bid the Air Force calculated a dollar figure to overcome that risk. This alone drove up the cost proposal of the Boeing K-767 aircraft. The Air Force technically still does not have to withdraw the award to Northrop Grumman and EADS, but they would be best off reopening the competition.
Boeing’s protest sustained by the GAO
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, GAO, Military Aviation, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics, production program
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 enough won by Boeing but now back in source selection. The Air Force is not required to follow the GAO’s recommendation, but if it does not Boeing is sure to go to the Court of Appeals and Congress could make it very difficult for the Air Force to execute the contract.
Democrats plan to interfere with KC-45
Filed under: Boeing, Congress, Contract Awards, EADS, Federal Budget Process, GAO, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
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. They cannot do that, just direct, as with the CSAR-X award, that the source selection be reopened. It is also clear that members from states that Boeing is in will move to conduct an investigation no matter what that will delay the program. It is also interesting that they are now blaming John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, for throwing out the lease with Boeing. They weren’t supporting Boeing when their executives and USAF acquisition people were going to jail over the deal. As previously reported any attempt by Congress to muddle up the deal purely on political and nativist grounds will only make it difficult in the future to get competition on other contracts.
OSD expresses concern over protests
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, EADS, Federal Budget Process, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics
In this story Mr. Young, the Assistant Secretary of Defense of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics expresses concern over the recent amount of protests with large systems. Part of the story is letting Boeing know not to focus on the recent lost KC-45 award, but to look to future competitions. He also generally agreed with the recent GAO report that systems are over cost and behind schedule, but that is to be expected. Read more
Air Force leadership interfered in contract award, disciplined
Filed under: Contract Awards, Federal Budget Process, Protest, U.S. Air Force
It turns out, according to this article, that the Air Force violated all sorts of laws and regulations in awarding a media company a contract to help promote the Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team. The company that won cost twice as much as the other bidder, who protested the contract award in 2006. It turns out that the company that won had a recently retired Air Force general as a partner and the current uniformed leadership of the Air Force interfered to steer it to that company. Now several people have been admonished and reassigned. Read more
Boeing claims USAF cost estimates for KC-45 favored EADS
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, development program, logistics
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 claiming that the ICE for their aircraft was flawed and that the USAF deliberately favored the Northrop Grumman proposal. See the story here. Having been involved in the process of generating these estimates I find it hard to believe that the independent cost analysts would deliberately do this. Read more
Good summary of the problems facing Boeing with the GAO
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., Protest, U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
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 will be a reopening of the competition. Of note, 29% of protests last year were upheld.
Congress, the media and the KC-45 award
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics, production program
I made the mistake of watching Lou Dobbs on CNN this Saturday who had a rant about the KC-45 award to Northrop Grumman and EADS. The only guest he had on was the head of the machinist union from Boeing who was obviously not unbiased. He had no guest from DoD or Northrop to talk about the award. It was clear that Mr. Dobbs does not understand how DoD buys things. Here is the video from Mr. Dobbs blog on this issue. 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.
Congress begins political war to overturn KC-45 decision
Filed under: Boeing, Contract Awards, EADS, Northrop Grumman Corp., U.S. Air Force, commercial aviation, logistics
Based on this story run in The Hays Daily News, Senators and Congressmen from the losing states are beginning the process to use politics to overturn the KC-45 award to Northrop-Grumman and EADS. Unfortunately there are Senators and Congressman from the states that stand to gain from the award. Read more
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