The sad shape of US military contracting.

[Dinner]

I'm sure Airbus will also over run costs but they start out $5 billion cheaper. So we have 5 billion reasons to go with them.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm sure Airbus will also over run costs but they start out $5 billion cheaper. So we have 5 billion reasons to go with them.

A more logical conclusion is the numbers they give out as estimates are horse****.

The Boeing is based on the 767, the Airbus on the A330. The passenger A330 is a more expensive plane than the passenger 767, by about $10M per unit. And the KC-767's unit costs are about $30-40M cheaper than the passenger unit's.

So I find it hard to believe the A330-based bid can be so much lower. Given that the GAO found suspect accounting involved with the bid, I think it's wrong to assume it'll be cheaper...

[Dinner]

To be fair moving much of the production, 60% to be exact, to the US lows them to produce things a lot more cheaply especially since the dollar has been falling so steadily for so long.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oerdin
To be fair moving much of the production, 60% to be exact, to the US lows them to produce things a lot more cheaply especially since the dollar has been falling so steadily for so long.

It wouldn't make that much difference and it'd also help Boeing as well.

[chequita guevara]

Given that the various military departments themselves are every bit is corrupt when it comes to rewarding contracts, I fail to see what the big deal is that they're streamlining the process at DoD. Now only one department needs to be bribed, instead of three.

[Patroklos]

While costs are important, the importance of costs is dwarfed by the importance of getting our service people the best quality equipment.

That is nice in theory, but in reality there are only so many dollars to go around. So it is actually a balance between getting the best equipment and making sure we can afford enough of that equipment to go around.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles

It wouldn't make that much difference and it'd also help Boeing as well.

Asher you were comparing the price of a European built civilian Airbus to an American built civilian Boeing. Yes, building the airbus in the US will lower the dollar price.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Oh, and I don't believe Boeing's claims that they'll be cheaper over the long run.

While the rest of this statement is certainly true, the Boeing plane, by the very fact it was smaller, would cost less to operate and maintain. So, over some amount of time that would start to work in it's favor. Whether that timeframe was within the scope of the proposal, I cannot say.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Specifically, GAO sustained the protest for the following reasons:

1. The Air Force, in making the award decision, did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation, which provided for a relative order of importance for the various technical requirements. The agency also did not take into account the fact that Boeing offered to satisfy more non-mandatory technical “requirements” than Northrop Grumman, even though the solicitation expressly requested offerors to satisfy as many of these technical “requirements” as possible.

2. The Air Force’s use as a key discriminator that Northrop Grumman proposed to exceed a key performance parameter objective relating to aerial refueling to a greater degree than Boeing violated the solicitation’s evaluation provision that “no consideration will be provided for exceeding [key performance parameter] objectives.”

3. The protest record did not demonstrate the reasonableness of the Air Force’s determination that Northrop Grumman’s proposed aerial refueling tanker could refuel all current Air Force fixed-wing tanker-compatible receiver aircraft in accordance with current Air Force procedures, as required by the solicitation.

4. The Air Force conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing, by informing Boeing that it had fully satisfied a key performance parameter objective relating to operational utility, but later determined that Boeing had only partially met this objective, without advising Boeing of this change in the agency’s assessment and while continuing to conduct discussions with Northrop Grumman relating to its satisfaction of the same key performance parameter objective.

5. The Air Force unreasonably determined that Northrop Grumman’s refusal to agree to a specific solicitation requirement that it plan and support the agency to achieve initial organic depot-level maintenance within two years after delivery of the first full-rate production aircraft was an “administrative oversight,” and improperly made award, despite this clear exception to a material solicitation requirement.

6. The Air Force’s evaluation of military construction costs in calculating the offerors’ most probable life cycle costs for their proposed aircraft was unreasonable, where the agency during the protest conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest most probable life cycle cost; where the evaluation did not account for the offerors’ specific proposals; and where the calculation of military construction costs based on a notional (hypothetical) plan was not reasonably supported.

7. The Air Force improperly increased Boeing’s estimated non-recurring engineering costs in calculating that firm’s most probable life cycle costs to account for risk associated with Boeing’s failure to satisfactorily explain the basis for how it priced this cost element, where the agency had not found that the proposed costs for that element were unrealistically low. In addition, the Air Force’s use of a simulation model to determine Boeing’s probable non-recurring engineering costs was unreasonable, because the Air Force used as data inputs in the model the percentage of cost growth associated with weapons systems at an overall program level and there was no indication that these inputs would be a reliable predictor of anticipated growth in Boeing’s non-recurring engineering costs.

[Asher]

Thanks Lefty. Again, it looks like the right thing is being done here and it was wrong to jump to conclusions...

where the agency during the protest conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest most probable life cycle cost;

This is the part that's more important, I think. It also counters Oerdin's claim about the Airbus being cheaper. It was something I found suspect just by doing some basic research. Maybe if people in government and the geosciences had the due diligence of some all-star like myself, we wouldn't be living in such a ****ed up political/geoscience world.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Asher
Thanks Lefty. Again, it looks like the right thing is being done here and it was wrong to jump to conclusions...

where the agency during the protest conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest most probable life cycle cost;

This is the part that's more important, I think. It also counters Oerdin's claim about the Airbus being cheaper. It was something I found suspect just by doing some basic research. Maybe if people in government and the geosciences had the due diligence of some all-star like myself, we wouldn't be living in such a ****ed up political/geoscience world.

While true, this part is also pretty blatant:

5. The Air Force unreasonably determined that Northrop Grumman’s refusal to agree to a specific solicitation requirement that it plan and support the agency to achieve initial organic depot-level maintenance within two years after delivery of the first full-rate production aircraft was an “administrative oversight,” and improperly made award, despite this clear exception to a material solicitation requirement.

Essentially, this failure to agree to a material requirement SHOULD have disqualified the Northrop/Airbus bid all together.

But, "administrative oversight" let it continue.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx


While the rest of this statement is certainly true, the Boeing plane, by the very fact it was smaller, would cost less to operate and maintain. So, over some amount of time that would start to work in it's favor. Whether that timeframe was within the scope of the proposal, I cannot say.

That would entirely depend upon how much Boeing charged for parts and service along with how often parts needed replacing. It wouldn't be the first time parts wore out faster then the manufacturer claimed.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Asher
Thanks Lefty. Again, it looks like the right thing is being done here and it was wrong to jump to conclusions...

where the agency during the protest conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, result in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offeror with the lowest most probable life cycle cost;

It also counters Oerdin's claim about the Airbus being cheaper.

Bull****. Boeing is claim they can project costs out over the next 30 years whenin fact they cannot. Northrop-Airbus is $5 billion cheaper right up front and I'll take that $5 billion right now and hedge my bet about lying corporations. The reality is the oportunity costs of that $5 billion beats Boeings claims of saving $X billion over 30 years.

[Asher]

The reality is the accounting is ****ed and you refuse to admit it. This is the reality.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Bull****. Boeing is claim they can project costs out over the next 30 years whenin fact they cannot. Northrop-Airbus is $5 billion cheaper right up front and I'll take that $5 billion right now and hedge my bet about lying corporations. The reality is the oportunity costs of that $5 billion beats Boeings claims of saving $X billion over 30 years.

Maybe it's because they didn't complete the proposal (like Uno said) that they were cheaper? Duh?

Why do you argue points that you have so blatantly lost?

Does your ego allow you to accept when you are wrong?

It is more than obvious that rebidding this thing is the right thing to do. From what I am reading, they could have just rejected Northrup out of hand.