Lockheed, GD battle for Army IT contract
By
Nick Wakeman
Lockheed Martin scores a victory with a bid protest, but it only means it gets to keep fighting with General Dynamics for an Army IT contract.
Score round two to Lockheed Martin as it battles with General Dynamics for an IT contract to support the Army’s IT Agency Operations Directorate.
General Dynamics IT won the contract, but Lockheed Martin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office objecting to the Army’s evaluation and source selection decision.
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After reviewing Lockheed’s protest, the Army has decided to withdraw its award to GDIT and take a corrective action. That move led GAO to dismiss Lockheed’s protest without ruling on its merits.
It’s interesting to look at what the Army told the GAO it will now do:
- Conduct an organizational conflict of interest investigation.
- Perform a price realism analysis for fixed-price line items.
- Review its evaluation of proposals and, if necessary, perform additional evaluation.
- Review its cost realism analysis of cost-reimbursement line items and, if necessary, perform more analysis.
- Issue a new source-selection decision.
At this stage, Lockheed has scored a nice victory, but there are no guarantees. The Army is just as likely to award the contract to General Dynamics again. Of course, Lockheed can refile the protest, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Details are sparse on what the contract is for other than the general description of enterprise transport management services.
According to its website, the Army’s IT Agency is responsible for the Army’s IT infrastructure around Washington D.C. Its tagline is Creating Connections by Putting the Byte into Fight.
The agency has six lines of services: business administration, enterprise management, operations, customer care, engineering, and enterprise information and mission assurance.