By Geoff Fein
Northrop Grumman [NOC], Lockheed Martin [LMT] and BAE Systems have submitted bids to develop the Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) system, the companies said yesterday.
CANES is a directed approach to reduce infrastructure and increase capability across surface ship networks. It is run out of the program executive office for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (PEO C4I) in San Diego.
The CANES program office for the Northrop Grumman team will be located in San Diego.
The goal of CANES is to consolidate and replace numerous legacy systems and deliver an open, common network to every ship, submarine and shore-based command and control center in the Navy. A subprogram of CANES, Afloat Core Services, decouples development of software so that it is modular, reusable and interoperable and can be updated more quickly and frequently, according to Northrop Grumman.
On Wednesday, Boeing [BA] said it had bid on CANES.
PEO C4I released its request for proposals (RFP) on April 2. The RFP is for the common computing environment, the infrastructure piece of CANES (Defense Daily, April 8).
According to Northrop Grumman, the Navy’s CANES program is valued at more than $1.5 billion over the next five years. The program is an investment in a modernized command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture that will significantly reduce development, deployment and lifecycle costs, the company said.
“Amplifying Northrop Grumman’s company-wide resources and expertise in platforms, C4ISR, and advanced security techniques, we’ve forged a formidable team,” Michael Twyman, vice president for Integrated Command and Control Systems at Northrop Grumman, said. “Our major teammate is an industry leader in networks, computing and commercial best practices in IT service management, and the small and disadvantaged businesses on our team are distinguished by their special skills and track records of innovation.”
As its major technology and services partner, Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector is teamed with IBM [IBM] to provide commercial industry innovation and best practices that can be integrated into the CANES solution, according to Northrop Grumman.
“IBM and Northrop Grumman have a strong record of success working together to serve the federal government community,” said Todd Ramsey, general manager of IBM’s U.S. Federal Business. “The CANES project offers IBM and Northrop Grumman an opportunity to provide the Navy with world class IT capabilities based on open standards and COTS, and leading edge shipbuilding and ship-board domain experience.”
The Northrop Grumman-led team also includes key small-business partners Atlas Technologies, Charleston, S.C.; Beatty and Company Computing, Juno Technologies, and Syzygy Technologies, Inc., all based in San Diego; and CenterBeam Inc., San Jose, Calif.
“We are leveraging the strengths of Northrop Grumman by applying the C4ISR capabilities of the company’s Information Systems sector, the shipbuilding and installation capabilities of the Shipbuilding sector, the integrated logistics support of our Technical Services sector, and our industry-leading network security capabilities. This enables us to offer a uniquely powerful CANES solution for the Navy,” Linda Mills, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Information Systems sector, said.