By Marina Malenic
The Defense Department yesterday issued a new draft request for proposals (RFP) to build the Air Force’s refueling tanker aircraft fleet and said it plans to give “positive consideration” for the ability to offload fuel in excess of the Air Force’s threshold requirement for the capability.
“It was always our intention to give positive consideration for the amount of fuel offload above threshold,” Shay Assad, the department’s director of procurement and acquisitions policy, said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] has offered a modification of its A330 aircraft, which has greater fuel capacity than Boeing‘s [BA] KC-767. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ auditing agency, last month sustained Boeing’s March 11 protest of the award to Northrop Grumman and industry partner European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS). The auditors found that the service “had made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition” and recommended that the bidding process be reopened (Defense Daily, June 19).
Assad said the major changes in the new RFP are: 1) the separation of maintenance and fuel cost estimates from acquisition costs; 2) the evaluation of lifecycle costs based on a 40-year rather than a 25-year service life basis; 3) the clarification that “positive consideration” will be given for fuel offload capacity in excess of the threshold objective.
The “extra credit” for fuel offload capacity “appears to justify a bigger aircraft,” an aide to Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) said in response to the news. Dicks has been a proponent of Washington-based Boeing’s bid.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R), who represents Alabama, where much of Northrop Grumman’s tanker work would take place, issued a statement applauding the release of the RFP.
“There is an urgent and compelling need to provide our men and women in uniform with the aerial refueling tanker that best meets their needs,” the statement reads.
Assad said the substance of the new RFP remains largely unchanged and that the few differences are “focused on the GAO ruling.”
“We’ve provided the offerers very clear and unambiguous insight into the relative importance of the technical factors that we’re going to evaluate,” he explained.
He added that the new source selection advisory committee appointed by John Young, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, has also drafted a “cross-reference matrix” of key performance parameters and key system attributes that explicitly states their relative weights in the evaluation. The Pentagon yesterday provided the two companies with the matrix and another 98 pages of amendments and clarifications to the original RFP.
Assad said Pentagon officials will meet with Boeing and Northrop Grumman next week and he expects issuance of a final RFP “toward the middle of the month.” The companies will then have 45 days to submit their offers. Discussions with the bidders will conclude by the early part of December. A final decision could be made “around New Year’s Eve…hopefully,” according to Assad.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said the company is “focused on identifying and understanding any changes that may have been made to the original requirements and evaluation criteria.”
“We also need to see how the document addresses the strong concerns the Government Accountability Office identified in sustaining our protest,” he said via e-mail. “Despite the fact that the first competition appropriately addressed the aircraft’s intended mission, until we receive the final RFP it is too early to offer any details about Boeing’s path forward.”
Northrop Grumman issued a statement commending the Pentagon “for recognizing the urgency of replacing the Eisenhower-era refueling tankers via a thorough yet speedy revised acquisition process.” The company is reviewing the draft RFP and intends “to provide the Department of Defense our comments on the draft in short order.”