By Ann Roosevelt
Oshkosh Corp. [OSK] said it was “heartened” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision denied BAE Systems’ and Navistar Defense LLC’s protest of the evaluation of price in the Army’s award of the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV), a company official said.
“We were really heartened that the GAO ruling specifically says that the GAO set aside any challenges to Oshkosh pricing,” Mike Ivy, vice president and general manager of Army programs, told Defense Daily in an interview yesterday.
On Dec. 14 GAO upheld FMTV award protests by BAE and Navistar in two narrow areas–the capability evaluation, and the evaluation of Navistar’s past performance (Defense Daily, Dec. 15).
BAE in particular had said a key determinator for the company in pursuing its initial protest was the Army’s evaluation that BAE and Oshkosh were equal in cost and price factors (Defense Daily, Sept. 9).
Ivy said denying the price challenge “tells us that as far as the GAO is concerned that our pricing–that we’re financially stable, very capable company that who happens to know what we’re doing when we price our products and that’s not a concern for them.”
Wisconsin Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Democrats, in support of the company, issued a statement after the GAO decision:”We are confident that Oshkosh has the expertise to deliver for the taxpayer and the military. Oshkosh Corporation continues to offer a strong, cost-effective proposal for the Army, has proven for decades to be a qualified producer of high-quality equipment for our armed forces, and would do so for the FMTV program.”
GAO did recommend the Army reevaluate the offerors’ proposals under the capability evaluation factor consistent with the terms of the solicitation.
Ivy said the company expects it would be “one or more” of the sub factors that would be reevaluated, “but probably not the whole technical capability evaluation package. But we won’t know that until we see the whole GAO decision.”
The stop work order from the Army in effect after the September protests continues in force.
Oshkosh thus far has not heard from the Army. At some point soon, the company will receive, as will the general public, a redacted version of GAO’s decision.
GAO did not direct the Army to cancel the contract with Oshkosh, though it did recommend that when the reevaluation concludes if Oshkosh “is not found to offer the best value, the agency should terminate Oshkosh’s contract for the convenience of the government.”
At this point, Ivy said, Oshkosh expects some schedule adjustment in the program due to the time involved in deciding the protest. Meanwhile, Oshkosh continues to move forward with its 150,000 square foot E-Coat facility, ordering long-lead items for trucks for test, and those activities the company was doing before the GAO protest decision, Ivy said.
“Immediately after the protest, the Army issued a stop work order on the contract, which means we are not paid for any work we are doing right now. We are confident in the outcome of the Army’s process and so we’re anxious to get on with the program, and we’re continuing to do work on our own,” he said.
“There are no workers at Oshkosh who were depending on this FMTV award to continue working at Oshkosh,” Ivy said. “We have plenty of work for our workforce and they’re continuing to work on any of the many other platforms that we sell to the Army and Marine Corps that we continue to produce. “
Oshkosh has a Flexible Integrated Production line. While the M-ATV is built at a separate facility, the workforce is trained to work on many different vehicles, be they Army or Marine, as they come down the line, he said.
“You’ll have an Army truck come down, the next truck could be a Marine truck and the next truck could be an Army truck so it gives us a great deal of flexibility in our production process, it’s one of our strengths we think as we think about the FMTV,” he said.
“By and large we are a very optimistic upper mid-Western people here who’d like to get on with business, and our cup is about three-quarters full right now based on what we read in the GAO press release that basically tells the Army to go back and review two very narrow parts of their evaluation and rescore if necessary and we’re confident the Army will do what GAO asked them to do, and we’re confident it will be the offer of choice for the FMTV because our bid is clearly best for U.S. taxpayer and the American soldier,” Ivy said.
The Army has 60 days to get back to GAO on its actions in response to the recommendations.