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April 24, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - April 23, 2020

AIR FORCE

Dataminr Inc., New York, New York, has been awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for $258,661,096 for a commercially available license subscription that can leverage a variety of publicly available information sources, evaluate content to detect emerging events as they are developing and push alerts to users based on user-defined areas and topics of interest. The solution must be capable of distributing alerts in near real-time via email, web-based application and mobile platforms. The solution must be available commercially in the marketplace and able to scale to a Department of Defense enterprise capability and keep pace with developments and standards within the commercial industry sector. Work will be performed in New York and is expected to be complete by April 23, 2025. This award resulted after three firms were solicited and submitted bids. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $48,720,000 are being obligated at the time of the award. The Air Force District Washington, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, is the contracting activity (FA7014-20-C-0016).

Aviation Training Consulting LLC, Altus, Oklahoma, has been awarded a $7,281,483 firm-fixed-price modification (P00043) to previously-awarded contract FA8621-16-C-6339 for B-52 training system contractor logistics support and training system support center sustainment. The contract modification is for the third increment of the seven year basic contract. Work will be performed at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; and Minot AFB, North Dakota, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2020. Air Force fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds will fund this effort. The total cumulative face value of the contract is $7,281,483. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity.

NAVY

Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, Baltimore, Maryland, was awarded a $147,639,775 undefinitized contract action modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-20-C-5310 for the procurement of MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) vertical launcher module electronic components. Work will be performed in Baltimore, Maryland (44%); Fort Walton Beach, Florida (39%); Waverly, Iowa (3%); Hampstead, Maryland (2%); Dover, Pennsylvania (2%); Chaska, Minnesota (1%); St. Peters, Missouri (1%); Wooddale, Illinois (1%); Plainview, New York (1%); Irvine, California (1%); Roebling, New Jersey (1%); Forest Hill, Maryland (1%); Millersville, Maryland (1%); Sterling Heights, Michigan (1%); and Red Lion, Pennsylvania (1%). This modification provides the electronic components for MK 41 VLS, which is installed onboard Navy surface combatants (CG-47 and DDG-51 class ships) and multiple allied Navy platforms. MK 41 VLS stores, selects, prepares and launches standard missiles, Tomahawk, Vertical Launch Anti-Submarine Rocket and Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles. Work is expected to be completed by March 2025. This contract combines purchases for the Navy (65%); and the governments of South Korea, Finland and Germany (35%) under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy); and FMS funding in the amount of $29,527,952 was obligated at the time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. (Awarded April 17, 2020)

Trijicon Inc.,* Wixom, Michigan, is awarded a $41,218,080 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the remanufacture of Rifle Combat Optics (RCOs). This contract provides for the materials, labor, equipment, facilities and missing/repair parts necessary to inspect, diagnose, test and restore the RCOs. Work will be performed in Wixom, Michigan, and is expected to be completed by April 2025. This contract has a five-year ordering period with a maximum value of $41,218,080. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Marine Corps) in the amount of $8,160,000 will be obligated at the time of award for the first task order and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1) - only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The Marine Corps Logistics Command, Albany, Georgia, is the contracting activity (M67004-20-D-0003).

Avian LLC,* Lexington Park, Maryland, is awarded a $13,342,932 modification (P00068) to exercise an option on a previously-awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00421-17-C-0049) to provide support for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division's Integrated System Evaluation Experimentation and Test Department. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and services will include flight test engineering, programmatic, administrative, design, execution, analysis, evaluation and reporting of tests and experiments of aircraft, unmanned air systems, weapons and weapons systems. Work is expected to be completed in April 2021. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) in the amount of $3,783,077; fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) in the amount of $90,000; fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,549,886; fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $28,732; fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $19,816; fiscal 2020 other procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $144,756; and Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $310,238 will be obligated at time of award, $254,572 of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

ARMY

ECS Federal LLC, Fairfax, Virginia, was awarded an $83,099,372 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for to create combined artificial intelligence (AI)-platform prototypes enhance. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work will be performed in Fairfax, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of March 26, 2023. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test, and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $83,099,372 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W911QX-20-C-0023).

Sherwood Aviation,* Opa Locka, Florida, was awarded an $18,636,740 firm-fixed-price contract for overhaul/repair of CH-47 gas turbine engines. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of April 23, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-20-D-0051).

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, was awarded a $9,943,746 modification (P00044) to contract W58RGZ-19-C-0027 for continuation effort for the Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft System. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $9,943,746 were obligated at the time of the award. Work will be performed in Poway, California, with an estimated completion date of April 23, 2021. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Boyer Commercial Construction Inc.,* Columbia, South Carolina, was awarded an $8,686,240 firm-fixed-price contract for national cemetery expansion at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Bids were solicited via the internet with seven received. Work will be performed in Columbia, South Carolina, with an estimated completion date of May 14, 2021. Fiscal 2020 Department of Veteran Affairs funds in the amount of $8,686,240 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston, South Carolina, is the contracting activity (W912HP-20-C-2001).

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

Robertson Fuel Systems LLC, Tempe, Arizona, has been awarded a maximum $38,784,713 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery requirements contract for aircraft fuel tanks. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Arizona, with an April 23, 2025, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2025 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (SPRRA1-20-D-0034).

*Small business

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/2162978/source/GovDelivery/

On the same subject

  • As mission-capable rates languish, Pentagon should embrace digital engineering

    February 4, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    As mission-capable rates languish, Pentagon should embrace digital engineering

    Ben Kassel and Bruce Kaplan While many Pentagon initiatives face a change of course under new Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, its digital engineering strategy deserves a push forward. The strategy, issued in 2018 by then-Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin, aimed to help military services harness modern sustainment methods like additive manufacturing, digital twin and augmented reality. For the Department of Defense, enterprisewide implementation of these techniques would lower costs, increase weapon systems' mission-capable rates and afford flexibility in fleet modernization. But digital engineering requires digital, 3D data — and the DoD doesn't have enough. Modern sustainment practices hinge on the availability of what's known as the model-based definition, 3D models and digitized descriptive information for a system or component. Using computer-aided design programs, engineers can manipulate the data to enable practices like condition-based maintenance, eliminating weapon systems' unnecessary downtime. Digital data can facilitate seamless transit from original equipment manufacturers, or OEM, to procurers and sustainers in the field and at maintenance depots worldwide. However, the technical data for most weapons systems remains elusive to the services and their program management offices, or PMO, or the datasets are available only in 2D documentation, such as blueprints. Meanwhile, readiness suffers. Of 46 weapons systems reviewed by the Government Accountability Office, only three achieved annual mission-capable targets at least five times between 2011 and 2019. More than half (24) failed to meet their goal even once, according to GAO's November 2020 report. The KC-13OJ Super Hercules air refueler and the MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor were among the programs to miss their target all nine years. GAO cited inaccessible technical data as a contributing factor for both programs. Of the Super Hercules, the report says: “The Navy and Marine Corps were unable to obtain the technical data of the aircraft ... the lack of the technical data compromises [their] ability to analyze and resolve sustainment issues.” Similar concerns were raised about the P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, saying “technical data needed for maintenance has not been readily available to the Navy.” Dozens of systems, including the F-35 fighter jet, face similar obstacles. Notably, the GAO report referred not to 3D, model-based data but rather legacy incarnations: blueprints and documents that may have been converted “digitally” into PDFs. This is a far cry from the machine-readable formats required to use digital engineering technologies across the enterprise. The GAO cited the production of 170 “structural repair manuals” as a means of narrowing the Osprey's technical data gaps. The labor-intensive replication of physical documents — the PMO projected five years to deliver all of them — is a piecemeal solution, at best. Troublingly, modern sustainment methods seem beyond the reasonable expectation of not just PMOs but even forward-looking organizations like the GAO. To foster its DoD-wide implementation, the digital engineering strategy needs reinforcement, which could take the following forms: Champion the availability of model-based technical data in policy. Modern sustainment requires a shift from decadesold practices. Paper data that supports secondhand manuals and haphazard 2D-to-3D conversion should no longer be the norm. Services cannot lead this transition on their own, however. Federal guidance on the acquisition, creation, use and management of authentic, model-based technical data would jump-start the movement toward digital sustainment. Educate PMOs to acquire technical data rights strategically. Policy must be partnered by the right mindset. One reason PMOs don't have technical data is that sometimes they never asked for it. An afterthought at the time of procurement, technical data is often overlooked until maintenance is needed. Then it's too late — or too expensive — to acquire the needed rights. Leadership can encourage PMOs to identify potential sustainment solutions — and the technical data rights needed to execute them — at the time of acquisition. Assert the government's rights to model-based technical data. A sea change in sustainment depends on building unprecedented trust between OEMs and PMOs. OEMs understandably need to protect intellectual property, but their grip on model-based technical data must loosen for digital sustainment to flourish at scale. This can be accomplished without OEMs surrendering their competitive advantage. In many cases, OEMs need not transfer custody of the data itself for sustainment activities. Limited-rights agreements and trusted third-party arrangements can be tailored to enable data availability only when needed or to execute specific solutions. Giving OEMs confidence in these approaches will entail extensive dialogue and commitment by DoD leaders. Given the GAO's assessment, seeking a breakthrough is worth the attempt. Operationalizing the DoD strategy requires work in other areas as well, particularly in removing intra- and inter-organizational stovepipes, and securing the data's transmission and storage. But the first step toward a model-based sustainment enterprise is ensuring the availability of modern technical data. This need will only grow more crucial. Today's sustainment practices too closely resemble those of 30 years ago, not what they should be 30 years from now. We're already playing catch up. It's time to view sustainment with 3D glasses. Ben Kassel is a senior consultant at LMI. He previously worked with the U.S. government on defining and exchanging technical data used for naval architecture, marine and mechanical engineering, and manufacturing. Bruce Kaplan is a fellow at LMI. He previously served as technical director of logistics for research and development at the Defense Logistics Agency. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2021/02/03/as-mission-capable-rates-languish-pentagon-should-embrace-digital-engineering/

  • Why Federal A&D Spending Is The Modern Interstate Highway System

    September 26, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Why Federal A&D Spending Is The Modern Interstate Highway System

    bY Michael Bruno Lockheed Martin recently broke ground on two new buildings in Courtland, Alabama, a small town 45 mi. west of Huntsville. The buildings will house the manufacturing and testing of hypersonics weapon programs. Lockheed expects to move at least 72 new jobs into Courtland and add another 200 in Huntsville over the next three years. It is big news for Courtland, which saw its population drop to 609 in the 2010 U.S. Census from 769 in 2000. But in the grand scheme of things, the dozens or perhaps hundreds of jobs involved—it is unclear how many are new hires versus relocations or backfill—are a fraction of Lockheed's roughly 105,000-person workforce. Yet it is what President Donald Trump wants to see—and where—and a result of record national security spending of $750 billion annually under his administration that includes new technology priorities such as hypersonics. Not surprisingly, Alabama's powerful Republican Senate appropriator Richard Shelby and Gov. Kay Ivey as well as Lockheed Chairman, CEO and President Marillyn Hewson and officials from the Air Force, Army and Navy made sure to be in Courtland for the public relations event Sept. 16. In 2016, Trump campaigned with a promise to provide a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade America. Roads, bridges and airports featured prominently. After he took office, Trump latched on to a contentious Republican proposal to outsource FAA air traffic control, which the White House called the cornerstone of his infrastructure push. All of it died legislatively. But before Democrats or others try to score points over the failure, they should understand Trump has still delivered. The truth is that Trump's defense spending and government support of commercial aviation and space are today's equivalent of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. They have been what passes for infrastructure spending, just without roads, bridges and airports. Increasingly, the employment figures are adding up, and so are the beneficiaries such as Courtland. The U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) industry was responsible for more than 2.56 million jobs in 2018, a 5.5% gain over 2017, thanks primarily to a return to growth across the top tier and supply chain, according to September statistics from the Aerospace Industries Association. The trade association says A&D accounted for 20% of all U.S. manufacturing jobs and paid nearly $237 billion in wages and benefits last year, up 7.72% from 2017. In 2018, the average wage of an A&D worker was $92,742, an increase of 1.36%. That made the average A&D salary 87% higher than the national average salary of a U.S. worker. Hewson promises to hire thousands of workers, almost all in the U.S. “Roughly 93% of our employees are U.S.-based, as are 93% of our 16,000 suppliers, making Lockheed Martin a proud driver of broad-based economic development and opportunity in America,” the company says. A map of employment shows the company has at least 100 employees in half of the 50 states. This is the story across the industry, which is the model for farming taxpayer-funded work across the states in order to build political coalitions to support major A&D programs. On the same day of the Courtland event, Northrop Grumman unveiled its industry team bidding for the Ground-based Strategic Deterrent, including a contractor army of more than 10,000 people in at least 32 states. But all good things come to an end, and warnings are emerging that A&D's infrastructure-like run could sunset. “Trump is now in full ‘2020-reelection mode,' with continued 2022-26 defense funding growth rapidly becoming a secondary issue,” notes longtime defense consultant Jim McAleese. He points to a Sept. 9 rally in North Carolina at which Trump characterized the “rebuilding” of the U.S. military as “complete.” This can matter a lot to communities where federal A&D spending is focused. The Pentagon began to push out information this year to help states and local communities understand how much they depend on defense appropriations. In a report unveiled March 19 at the Brookings Institution, the Defense Department found the top 10 states by total defense spending received in fiscal 2017 accounted for $239.7 billion of the $407 billion total tracked that year. “There's no obvious correlation of red states or blue states, not that there should be,” noted Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and Brookings analyst. Officials say communities should plan ahead. “It gets back to the rural areas,” says Patrick O'Brien, director of the Pentagon's Office of Economic Adjustment. “Some rural areas see a lot of defense spending; others do not. Where it is occurring, you probably have a very important facility or you have an important presence. And it's up to these local officials to get a better handle on it.” https://aviationweek.com/defense/why-federal-ad-spending-modern-interstate-highway-system

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