The Contracting Education Academy

Contracting Academy Logo
You are here: Home / Archives for fast track

By

Army switches to special fast-track contract for drone-mounted signal jammer

The U.S. Army wants drone-mounted signal jammers now to dominate future electronic warfare and is switching to a little-understood and lightly regulated contracting method to get them.

After more than a year trying to fill a standard contract for a drone-mounted system to jam enemy communications, the Army’s electronic warfare division is switching course and will use a fast-track system that isn’t bound by traditional contracting rules.

Rather than continue its year-long, Federal Acquisition Regulation-based solicitation, the Army Electronic Warfare and Cyber division is handing its multi-function electronic warfare Air Large program over to the Consortium for Command, Control and Communications in Cyberspace, or C5. While the Army will still pick the winner of the Air Large contract, that company will be a member of the C5 consortium.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2018/03/army-switches-special-fast-track-contract-drone-mounted-signal-jammer/147102/

By

Border agency says it has picked finalists to design Trump’s wall

The federal government said Friday that it has settled on finalists to design President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico, but it won’t identify them.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it will notify finalists over the next several days. It won’t say how many there are, but it has said previously that it would pick up to 20 for contracts expected to be valued between $200,000 and $500,000.

An agency document released last month by Senate Democrats says authorities plan to select winners by June 14 to build prototypes in San Diego on a short stretch of land near the Otay Mesa border crossing with Mexico.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-12/border-agency-says-it-has-picked-finalists-to-design-wall

By

Bidders question handling of border-wall project

The federal government has said it will narrow this week the list of companies in the running to build prototypes of a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

But some bidders expressed skepticism about the process, if the government’s goal — as President Trump promised — is to build a wall along the 1,900-mile border.

“From the beginning it’s not a serious process, it’s not going to get the wall built,” Michael Hari said of the process. His Illinois-based company, Crisis Resolution Security Services, submitted a design inspired by the Great Wall of China.

“Right from the get-go there were conflicts, there was not enough time given to it, to develop a reasonable process that would result in a wall getting built,” he said.

The bumps along the way have been documented.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection extended the initial deadline to submit designs three times. It also amended seven times the two requests for proposals in order to fix errors and elaborate on aspects of the project.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/09/not-serious-process-bidders-question-handling-border-wall-project/315253001/

By

The man behind the MRAP moves on

Amid the awards and decorations on display in the Pentagon office of Ashton B. Carter, the departing deputy secretary of defense, is a metal bearing, larger than a golf ball, which wears the scars of battle.

If the signature weapon of tenacious insurgents over the past decade-plus of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was the improvised roadway explosive, then the signature weapon of the American response was the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle, or MRAP.

The ball bearing so prized by Mr. Carter came from one of the vehicles, easily recognizable by their angular shape, to deflect blast, and outsize outside armor.

First as the Pentagon’s under secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, and then as the department’s deputy, Mr. Carter played a central role in the initiative to rush MRAPs to Afghanistan for the troop surge, circumventing the calcified procurement system that traditionally takes years to move a weapon from idea to the front lines.

Keep reading this article at: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/the-man-behind-the-mrap-moves-on

 

Contracting Academy Logo
75 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

RSS Twitter