BAE protests Army decision to transfer FMTV contract

BAE Systems has filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking the agency to review the decision by the U.S. Army to award a contract to a competitor for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) rebuy program. After a detailed analysis of the information provided by the Army, before and during the formal competition debrief, the Company believes that the Army did not properly evaluate the proposals, consistent with the Government's stated requirements, and the Army failed accurately to assess the various risks associated with the different proposals.

Navistar, BAE Systems Protest Major FMTV Award to Oshkosh; Army Stops Work (Updated)

(Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add information on BAE Systems’ protest.)

Sept. 4, 2009 — Navistar and BAE Systems have filed protests with the Government Accountability Office over the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles “rebuy” contract award to Oshkosh, a GAO representative told Inside the Army today.

The Army late last month awarded Oshkosh a $280.9 million contract for 2,568 FMTVs as well as support services and engineering. According to Oshkosh, the order is the first in a five-year contract to buy 23,000 trucks and trailers. The incumbent FMTV maker, BAE Systems, and Navistar competed for the contract.

Michael Golden of GAO told ITA today that Navistar filed a protest Sept. 3 and BAE Systems filed its own Sept. 4. The Navistar case is due to be decided by Dec. 14, he said.

An Army official confirmed to ITA that a stop-work order has been issued to Oshkosh.

In an e-mail to ITA today, Navistar spokeswoman Elissa Koc confirmed the protest.

“I cannot elaborate much at this time, but following our debrief meeting with the government, we found several issues with the source-selection process and procedures,” she wrote. “We are pursuing a review of those issues.”

BAE Systems declined to comment.

Oshkosh spokesman John Daggett told ITA today that “until we know further details, we really can’t comment.”

The filings mark the latest in a series of protests registered in recent Army vehicle efforts. Both the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program and the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle effort — in its earliest stages — faced protests. GAO denied the JLTV protests, which were filed by Northrop Grumman, which partnered with Oshkosh Defense, and Textron, which teamed with Boeing and Science Applications International Corp. In the case of M-ATV, Navistar quickly withdrew its protest.

Last week, BAE Systems issued a statement calling the news of Oshkosh’s win “disappointing” but stressing that the company would continue to deliver FMTVs.

In the statement, Linda Hudson, president of BAE Systems Land & Armaments, said the company “delivered a strong proposal, which we believe met the best interests of the business, customer and our shareholders.

“While this news is disappointing, we are proud of what we have achieved in making the FMTV the medium tactical vehicle of choice for the Army during the past 17 years,” she continued. “We remain committed to implementing a global land systems strategy, particularly in the areas of readiness and sustainment and export activities.” — Marjorie Censer

* Oshkosh must stop work on big Army truck contract

* GAO to rule on losing bidders’ protests by Dec. 14

* BAE says Army did not properly evaluate the bids (Adds details of protests, byline, analyst comments)

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - OshKosh Corp (OSK.N) said on Tuesday that it received a stop-work order from the U.S. Army on a multibillion-dollar truck contract after two losing bidders, Britain’s BAE Systems PLC (BAES.L) and Navistar International Corp (NAV.N), filed protests last week.

Oshkosh won the five-year contract for the Army’s Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) on Aug. 27, unseating incumbent BAE Systems in a deal valued by analysts at around $2 billion.

The fixed-price deal calls for Oshkosh to build up to 23,000 vehicles and trailers, and provide support services and engineering.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0828446720090908?rpc=44

“Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the protests had a good chance for success, given that Oshkosh had underbid incumbent BAE by about 30 percent, even though it had not built the trucks before, lacked the workforce needed to complete the orders, and had no existing relationships with suppliers for the trucks”

They won the contract because they lowballed the quote. The government did not apply best value, which takes into account past performance, resumes and how the work would be performed AS WELL AS COST. Any contract awarded that is above 10 million may be protested by the losing contractor. This has nothing to do with district.

BAE does not deserve to win this re-buy contract. for several reasons. Firstly, there only concern is putting trucks out the door for revenue and why not there a business, The big problem is they have no concern for the soldier as they say they do. I have witnessed BAE falsifying soldier training documents in Iraq. The DOD puts it in writing what type of training the soldier gets and contract companies such as BAE are required to give such support to the letter. BAE falls way short in my opinion and of many soldiers who went through BAE’s training program, BAE is slipshod in the training department. To give a soldier a passing grade when he didn't even do the task is a death sentence for our soldiers going on missions. The Government pays BAE good money to give 100% support to it's Army's by keeping the vehicles maintained as well as train the forces using those vehicles. By BEA Falsifying soldier training documents they have let America down, The US Army, The US Marines and US Air force but mostly those Soldiers and Marines who serve each day outside the wire in unsafe conditions.

Well, I’m coming into this a little late but STD you really should get your facts together. Oshkosh has never built “diesels”. As a matter of fact, they are typically behind a few years in the emissions market with their Detroit and CAT engines that are provided for their trucks. By the way, they don’t build every fire truck that rolls. They do own Pierce, who “builds a few” and their Airport and Municipal Group does build the Stryker ARFF (very few of them;like 20 a year maybe). E-One and Quality share the lions den for fire truck population. Oh, and if your so proud of OSHKOSH, try and get their company name right. The K is not capitolized. Yes...this was smack and they suck. Were it not for a few (I stress fw) key figures in leadership and sales, they would have been down the tubes last year...Great defense trucks...copied from the Germans

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