By Geoff Fein
Language added to the House-passed defense authorization bill would give the government the technical data rights for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) if either shipbuilder declined to build LCS for a specified price.
General Dynamics [GD] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] are separately building variants of LCS.
Although the House language still needs to work its way through conference negotiations, if it were to survive, it would enable the government to open up competition to build LCS at any shipyard in the nation, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Seapower subcommittee said Thursday during hearing on shipbuilding.
“One thing we hope we have corrected in this year’s defense authorization bill is language we included for the LCS ship program, that offered the vendor…[an] amount you determined is a fair price…gave them a take it or leave it fair offer, but also specified that if they chose not to build the ship for that price, that approximately $80 million of that money would be taken out so the nation would have the technical data package…the specifications for that ship…so we could put it out for bid to see if someone else could build it for that price,” Taylor said.
He asked Sean Stackley, the Navy’s acquisition chief, if as the service reconstitutes its acquisition force, would one goal be to make sure that every time the Navy buys some things, the service would include language on keeping the technical data packages for follow-on purposes.
“For follow-on purchases, we are going to own that technical data package to get the best price we can for the taxpayers, and hopefully the best ship for the Navy,” Taylor said.
Stackley said it is a difficult question because of the variations on that theme.
“Our intent is to pursue the technical data packages for future competitions, but there will be cases and examples where components or specific systems designs or elements of that technical data package are owned by the bidder either because they are developed separately for some other purpose…some other competition that didn’t involve the government,” he said. “And then we would have to choose between paying what would result in a high price for that technical data package or taking government purpose rights that give us a significant amount of liberty in terms of how we employ that technical data package for future competitions.”
Stackley said he could commit to making sure that when the Navy runs into those exceptions, congress would be aware of them before a contract is signed, so that there are no surprises on the back end of such a contract award.
What concerned Taylor about not owning the technical data package was the possible scenario of where a deployed LCS is badly damaged.
“Without [owning] the technical data package [it] would preclude you from taking that ship to the nearest yard and having it repaired to the original specifications,” he said. “I understand where you are coming from, but to the greatest extent possible we have to own the rights for those things we buy.”
The Navy does, however, own the technical data package for LCS, Stackley noted.
“To the extent we own outright, or we have government-purpose rights. We absolutely have what we need to conduct any repair on that ship,” he said.
When it comes to structural details or system detail, Stackley said he could not envision a scenario where the Navy wouldn’t own the technical data package.
“Where you start to get into difficulty,” Stackley said, “are commercial items that might be part of a ship design…reuse of software that’s commercial. These elements that were developed for a commercial market that we are bringing to bear inside of the ship design, we typically would not pursue those data rights.”