Northrop Grumman [NOC] cited its trademarked modular approach as the key reason for prevailing this week in the competition for the Navy’s next generation ship-based tactical network.
Northrop Grumman beat out Lockheed Martin [LMT] to build initial Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) systems in an award announced Wednesday by the Pentagon. CANES is designed to eliminate multiple legacy information technology (IT) systems and streamline their functions into a single platform.
Northrop Grumman’s program director for CANES, Dave Wegmann, said the company’s strategic and engineering model, intended to ease rapid integration of commercial technologies to ensure continuous competition and innovation throughout the program, was behind its success.
Known as Modular Open Systems Approach-Competitive, or MOSA-C, it ensures interoperability while lowering total lifecycle costs, Wegmann said yesterday.
“We feel that we provided the best value solution for the Navy,” he said in an interview.
The Navy has touted CANES as a cornerstone of shifting to open architecture (OA) systems, which are intended to be more easily upgradable to provide the latest technology to the warfighter than legacy systems while reducing costs over time. The Navy aims to replace five legacy systems for command, control, computers, communications and intelligence (C4I) currently serving on ships with CANES.
The program is expected to strengthen network infrastructure, improve security, and reduce hardware space. It will also decrease the manpower burden by reducing operations and sustainment workloads through the use of common equipment, training and logistics.
The Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman $36.6-million contract modification for the first set of deliveries. If all options are exercised the total value could reach nearly $638 million (Defense Daily, Feb. 2).
Lockheed Martin said it has requested a briefing on the decision.
“Lockheed Martin remains committed to delivering critical solutions for other Navy programs,” the company said.” We have requested a debrief to understand the Navy’s position on this decision so that we may better serve them in the future.”
The company did not say whether it would file a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), but such a move does not usually occur until after the losing bidder receives an explanation.
Northrop Grumman will provide the initial CANES systems to the Navy through fiscal 2013 under limited production, with the first to be installed on an Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer later this year.
The Navy will then hold a second competition for the full production run.