The Navy’s draft request for proposals (RFP) issued this week for the successor program to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) leaves little flexibility for the service to develop the best possible secure IT network, according to Hewlett-Packard [HPQ].
HP, which is the incumbent contractor for NMCI and intends to compete for the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) services contracts, pointed to the aspect of the draft that calls for the award to be given to the lowest-cost bidder that meets the minimum technical requirements.
Under the acquisition process, that is known as the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection option. HP believes the award should instead be guided by the “best value” source selection option, which allows the Navy and Marine Corps to tradeoff between cost and technical capability.
Patricia Tracey, HP’s vice president for defense industry development, told Defense Daily in an interview this week that LPTA makes it harder to take into account the need to insert new technology into the NGEN over time and counter emerging or unforeseen cyber threats. The LPTA draft RFP does not give the Navy and Marine Corps sufficient flexibility to adapt to a changing environment and could lead to added costs in the out-years, she said.
“It’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t be looking at the lowest price, but it should be the lowest price for what you’ve acquired,” Tracey said.
NGEN is intended to provide secure, net-centric data and services to the Navy and Marine Corps personnel. It’s the follow-on to the network originally consolidated in 2000 under the NMCI, which is the largest U.S. government information technology program. It represents about 70 percent of all Navy information technology operations and serves more than 700,000 users and 384,000 workstations and laptop computers.
HP acquired the NMCI program when it bought Electronic Data Systems in 2008. EDS had won the contract eight years earlier.
HP plans to compete for NGEN and is awaiting the final RFP in December. A media representative for HP said the company has “joined with several impressive companies” to compete for NGEN but was not ready to identify the firms.
Harris Corp. [HRS], which has been a subcontractor on NMCI, announced in January that it will bid for the contract with a team consisting of General Dynamics [GD] and Computer Sciences Corp. [CSC]. A Harris spokeswoman said the company was reviewing the draft RFP with its partners.
The Navy’s acquisition strategy breaks the service contracts into segments to foster greater competition within industry. The contracts are expected to be worth billions of dollars over at least the next decade. The draft RFP was issued on Monday by the Navy’s Space and Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), which is the acquisition and contracting authority for NGEN. SPAWAR spokesman Steven Davis would not comment on HP’s criticism of the draft, citing the sensitivity of the competition.
Tracey would not say whether the LPTA element of the draft RFP weakens HP’s chances in the competition, but said that as the incumbent HP is more knowledgeable of what it takes to deliver the services needed under NGEN. She said the tradeoff option would make for a fairer competition and would be “better for the Navy.”
The Navy plans to hold an NGEN industry day on Oct. 28. The Navy expects to announce the winner in December 2012 and complete the transition to NGEN no later than the end of April 2014.