Last week General Dynamics’s [GD] Bath Iron Works (BIW) became the second company to protest a recent award to Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] for Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) planning yard services, following a similar move by Austal USA.
In April the Navy awarded HII a $932 million award to support LCS yard services modernization work covering technical, planning, ship configuration, data, and logistics lifetime support required for in-service LCSs.
After winning the contract, HII said in a statement the contract provides the LCS program with post-delivery life-cycle support like fleet modernization program planning, design engineering and modeling, logistics support, long-lead-time material support, and preventative and unplanned maintenance system item development and scheduling. (Defense Daily, May 1).
GD filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on June 20. According to the protest docket, the decision is due by Sept. 30.
This came a month after Austal first lodged its own protest, with a decision due by Aug. 28 (Defense Daily, May 22).
The initial contract was less than the Defense Department’s $7 million threshold for daily announcements, but when including six years of options it can reach $932 million total. These three companies were the only competitors.