The Army on Thursday placed a $196.9 million order to AM General for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV), awarding the deal while
Oshkosh Defense’s [OSK] protest of the larger contract is still being considered.
Michael Sprang, project manager for the JLTV Joint Program Office, told Defense Daily the award could be made because Oshkosh Defense did not file a “timely protest” to issue a mandatory stay, which would have stopped work on the follow-on production program.
“As such, the Joint Program Office was able to make a risk-based choice to continue or not. With the approval of the Program Executive Officer and the Army Acquisition Executive, it was decided to continue working with AM General,” Sprang said.
AM General in February beat out current JLTV manufacturer Oshkosh Defense for the potential 10-year, $8.7 billion re-compete production contract, which may cover delivery of up to 20,682 JLTVs and up to 9,883 JLTV Trailers (Defense Daily, Feb. 9).
Sprang noted Thursday’s deal is the first order placed for additional JLTVs since the five-year, $4.6 billion base period contract was announced in February.
“This award with AM General will continue the manufacturing ramp-up process and accelerates the modernization of both the Army and Marine Corps Light Tactical Vehicle fleets,” Sprang said.
Thursday’s deal covers 271 JLTVs for the Army and 206 vehicles for the Marine Corps, according to Sprang.
The Army has said first vehicle delivery under the new production deal is expected 18 months after the initial contract award.
In early March, Oshkosh Defense announced it would file a protest with the Government Accountability Office on the decision to award the follow-on production contract to AM General and cited “significant concerns regarding the evaluation of the proposals” (Defense Daily, March 6).
A redacted copy of Oshkosh Defense’s obtained by Defense Daily claims AM General made an “unrealistic” price offer for the work and said the Army’s best value determination was “flawed” (Defense Daily, April 7).
“That’s the gist of our protest is that [the Army] didn’t properly contemplate the overall risk associated in the competition,” Tim Bleck, president of Oshkosh Defense, told Defense Daily during an interview at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium in late March. “We believe that the Army awarded the JLTV contract to a company that will likely lose hundreds of millions of dollars and, quite frankly, probably isn’t capable of handling such losses given that the JLTV platform will represent a majority of their volume.”
Jim Cannon, CEO of AM General, told Defense Daily in early March, before Oshkosh Defense filed its protest, that the company is “well into execution” in moving toward JLTV A2 production and is planning to build the platform in “some very non-traditional ways” (Defense Daily, March 2).
“It’s hard to sometimes win when there’s an incumbent. But I looked at it like a no-lose mission. We were either going to compete to win and win it. And we did. And, of course, we’re very humbled and fortunate for this opportunity now. Or, we would compete to win and be beaten, but the Army would get a better vehicle,” Cannon said.