Boeing [BA] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] yesterday announced their interest in winning the Air Force’s multibillion contest to provide contractor logistics support (CLS) to the service’s KC-10 tanker aircraft as well as two Royal Netherlands Air Force KDC-10 aircraft over approximately the next decade.
Boeing, the current CLS provider for the Air Force’s 59-aircraft KC-10 fleet, announced that it submitted its bid Dec. 6, while Northrop Grumman declared its intent to challenge the incumbent by competing to be the prime contractor.
The Air Force is expected to choose the winner around mid 2008. The nine-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a potential total value of $3.8 billion, according to industry. The winning team will oversee the aircraft’s depot-level maintenance and modifications, and supply-chain management and support global deployments of the platform.
“Boeing employees in San Antonio and across the world have been proud to support this great airplane and the warfighter,” Mike Wright, the company’s KC-10 program director, said in a Dec. 6 statement. “We look forward to continuing that effort, providing around-the-clock readiness to our nation’s warfighter.”
Boeing said its KC-10 CLS team, which includes more than 450 suppliers and partners that have been working on the KC-10 since it entered the Air Force’s fleet in 1986, provides more experience than any other offeror. Under the existing CLS contract, Boeing said it has serviced more than 700 KC-10s.
“Our team brings proven performance on the program and experience to the warfighter that our competition cannot offer,” Wright said. “And we’re prepared to continue that support.”
Conversely, Jim Cameron, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Technical Services sector said: “The Northrop Grumman team brings best business practices, innovation and cost savings to the Air Force on this program. We bring extraordinary capability to this contract with our expertise in logistics support, sustainment and technical services.
“Our partners,” he continued, “are recognized world leaders in their field, and we have tremendous reach back to the greater Northrop Grumman enterprise. For our Air Force customer this means only one thing — superior performance delivered anywhere, anytime.”
Northrop Grumman said it is a recognized as a leader in the maintenance and upgrade of its own products, such as the Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber, Navy’s E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Further, the company said, it also a leader in for its weapon systems experience on platforms that it did not build, “with a proven record” on the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System’s Total Systems Support Responsibility Program and the U.K. Royal Air Force’s Airborne Warning and Control System Whole Life Support Program.
“We bring significant experience to the KC/KDC-10 program with our excellent performance and management of maintenance, repair and overhaul, logistics, and sustaining engineering programs at all our military centers of excellence around the country,” said Dave Werkheiser, vice president and general manager of the company’s Life Cycle Optimization and Engineering Group.
“We also excel in program integration, leveraging the best of our industry partners’ core competencies and ensuring management provides a single focus for total contractor logistics support to the Air Force,” noted Ron Blickley, Northrop Grumman’s KC/KDC-10 program manager.