GAO Sustains Boeing KC-X tanker protest

[J Wolfsberger]

GAO SUSTAINS BOEING BID PROTEST

[Tom Odom]

KC-X - GAO Backs Boeing, Demands Recompete

Even without the detail, the GAO's statement sustaining Boeing's protest is a comprehensive condemnation of the Air Force's acquisition practices. If the Pentagon had not already fired the Air Force leadership, they would be out on their ears after this.

I have to admit after reading the GAO report--hat tip to John--I had this same thought on leaders...

[Danny]

I don't see it as an "ugh," nor an "oh boy!" It is what it is.

Further (and while I won't link my post on this), please take it from one who has been involved a thousand times before, the fact that NG was the low bidder is meaningless to me. Meaningless. Low bids are just that, and don't account for things like poor QA, poor quality, technology transfer, ensuring workability of the product (regarding all of the forgotten items that should have been in the spec but weren't), and other intangibles.

As one who has seen low bids come and go and compared them with bids a little higher (but come from tried and true suppliers), whether a bid beats another is sometimes a pointless indicator of its value.

I know the sentiment - to end waste and the reign of the defense contractors, the "industry." The "man." Also, the awful, immoral, horrible Sarbanes-Oxley bill has made life absolute hell for anyone who wants to ignore the low bid and single- or sole-source a proposal. I know from experience. So one avoids doing it at all costs. This is true regardless of the industry.

Contractors know this. They study this, they know human nature. They learn how to low bid a product. It is a not so well kept secret of the craft, and you would have to be in the business of making or reviewing technical proposals to know something about how bad the process can be.

Believe me. Blind trust in the process, or in low bids, is naive.

This isn't to say that Boeing's product is better than NG's. I have no idea. It is to say, however, that it means nothing to me that NG had the low bid. It neither makes the product better nor cheaper in the long run. it simply means nothing. It's just a vapor. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I speak as one who is badly jaded from experience. There are many others just like me in the country, pitiful poster children of Sarbanes Oxley.

[wm]

the fact that NG was the low bidder is meaningless to me. Meaningless. Low bids are just that, and don't account for things like poor QA, poor quality, technology transfer, ensuring workability of the product (regarding all of the forgotten items that should have been in the spec but weren't), and other intangibles.

As one who has seen low bids come and go and compared them with bids a little higher (but come from tried and true suppliers), whether a bid beats another is sometimes a pointless indicator of its value.

I know the sentiment - to end waste and the reign of the defense contractors, the "industry." The "man." Also, the awful, immoral, horrible Sarbanes-Oxley bill has made life absolute hell for anyone who wants to ignore the low bid and single- or sole-source a proposal. I know from experience. So one avoids doing it at all costs. This is true regardless of the industry.

Contractors know this. They study this, they know human nature. They learn how to low bid a product. It is a not so well kept secret of the craft, and you would have to be in the business of making or reviewing technical proposals to know something about how bad the process can be.

Believe me. Blind trust in the process, or in low bids, is naive.

This isn't to say that Boeing's product is better than NG's. I have no idea. It is to say, however, that it means nothing to me that NG had the low bid. It neither makes the product better nor cheaper in the long run. it simply means nothing. It's just a vapor. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I speak as one who is badly jaded from experience. There are many others just like me in the country, pitiful poster children of Sarbanes Oxley.

For what it is worth, most Defense contracts are no longer awarded to the lowest bidder. Instead, they are awarded to the bidder that provides the product that is the best value. This is not a simple case of semantics either--it has to do with deciding which product provides the best "bang for the buck," as it were. Cost should be only one of many variables considered in source selections.

From what I read in the GAO summary announcment, the AF may have screwed up by the way it said it was going to weight cost in its decison making process as compared to how it actually did weight cost. It also appears from the ruling that the AF may have been inconsistent in in applying life cycle cost factor methodolgies to the Boeing and NG bids. Neither of these things is the same as awarding (or not awarding) to the lowest bidder

I'm not going to dispute that the services still sometimes get stuck with lemon low bid products, but it is not because the acquisition system (or SOX for that matter) forces that on them. Cost is supposed to be treated as an independent variable, not as the overriding factor in deciding between competing bids/proposals.