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January 31, 2020 By cs

Army cancels $45-billion armored vehicle contest that drew one bid

The U.S. Army says it will reevaluate its effort to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle after just one company submitted a qualifying bid in the $45-billion contest.
M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle (photo courtesy U.S. Army)

“Based on feedback and proposals received from industry, the Army has determined it is necessary to revisit the requirements, acquisition strategy and schedule before moving forward,” the Army said in a recently released statement.

The statement did not mention that only General Dynamics submitted an eligible bid. The Army disqualified a Raytheon-Rheinmetall team because it was unable to get its German-made Lynx fighting vehicle to the United States by Oct. 1. SAIC and Bradley-maker BAE Systems did not submit bids.

The U.S. Army Futures Command is the Army command focused on modernization.

Thursday’s decision is a setback for Army Futures Command, founded in 2018 to lead the modernization of the service’s weapons. But the Army did live up to Secretary Ryan McCarthy’s edict: “If you fail, we’d like you to fail early and fail cheap.”

After several failed attempts to buy new combat vehicles, the Army tried to fast-track the Bradley replacement, which it calls the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. But the speed helped contribute to its demise.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/01/army-cancels-45b-armored-vehicle-contest-drew-one-bid/162504/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition strategy, Army, Army Futures Command, bid proposal, bid rejection, combat vehicle, DoD, requirements definition, single bid, sole bidder

October 24, 2019 By cs

Just 1 bidder is vying for 2 Pentagon programs worth $130 billion

The defense acquisition chief is looking into the Army’s disqualification of a second bidder to replace Bradley armored vehicles.

It’s a pretty widely accepted business principle that competition is good for business. But for two separate programs potentially worth a combined $130 billion, the Pentagon has just one possible bidder.

That’s prompted the U.S. Defense Department’s top weapons buyer to look into the U.S. Army’s $45 billion effort to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Service officials recently disqualified one potential competitor, leaving just one company to bid.

“I’m just getting more involved in that one right now,” Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said at a Friday press briefing.

DoD leaders have spent the past few years delegating the oversight of most major acquisition projects to the individual military services, a move intended to remove bureaucratic hurdles, speed up development and get weapons to troops faster. This marks the first time that Lord, who has held her job since August 2017, has publicly said she would step in to review one of those programs.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2019/10/just-one-bidder-vying-two-pentagon-programs-worth-130-billion/160718/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Army, bid rejection, competition, disqualification, DoD, GAO, government contracting, Pentagon

April 1, 2011 By AMK

E-mail snafu no reason to disqualify company’s bid

Rain nor snow nor flooded e-mail servers will stop the delivery of a contract proposal.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers should not have disqualified a bid because it arrived via e-mail four minutes after the noon deadline.

The proposal from Watterson Construction Co. was held up because the Corps e-mail servers were in the midst of a “mail storm,” causing unusual delays in distributing e-mails.

Judge Susan Braden ruled that the company’s bid was not late because it “was both reached and received by the government’s e-mail servers before the due date.”

According to the decision, a mail storm is an “e-mail sent to a large number of users, a sufficient number of whom reply to all, flooding an e-mail system and disabling it.”

“Watterson’s proposal was improperly eliminated from the competition, as the disturbance in the Army Corps’ servers entitled Watterson to a one-day time extension,” Braden wrote in her ruling.

Braden wrote that today’s e-mails are sent instantaneously in the ordinary course of business, and a problem such as a mail storm is abnormal. The judge concluded then that the mail storm was an “emergency or unanticipated event.” As a result of the emergency, the Federal Acquisition Regulation extends the deadline to bidders for 24 hours.

“It is true that at the time proposals were due, the Army Corps Office was open for business and proposals could have been delivered by hand,” Braden wrote. “The court, however, does not construe the phrase ‘proposals cannot be received’ to mean that it must be impossible for the government to receive proposals, before the ‘emergency’ or ‘unanticipated event’ exception applies.”

– About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is acquisition editor for Federal Computer Week – published Mar. 31, 2011 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/03/31/court-ruling-mail-storm-bid-proposal-deadline.aspx?s=wtdaily_010411 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Army Corps of Engineers, bid proposal, bid rejection, disqualification, responsiveness

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