Protests threaten delay of $500M Navy contract

Two companies are unhappy that they were eliminated from a nearly $500 million Naval Air Systems Command contract, and they want the Government Accountability Office to do something about it.

American Systems Corp. and Engility have filed protests with GAO after being eliminated from the competition for the contract to support research and development efforts.

The contract is expected to have multiple winners in large business and small business categories. It is a new contract but rolls together several existing vehicles. The value is expended to be $487 million over five years.

The Navy will use the contract to develop and prototype avionics and mission systems upgrades. According to solicitation documents posted on Deltek’s website, the contractors will provide prototyping, validation and verification, limited production, delivery support and logistics.

In evaluating proposals, the Navy will give more weight to past performance, technical proposal, corporate experience than price. Past performance carries the most weight of all.

Awards were expected in April of this year, which is still doable despite the protests. A decision from GAO is expected in April as well. While the Navy cannot make an award while the protest is pending, it can continue with its evaluation. If the Navy prevails in the protest, it should be ready to make awards almost immediately.

But if the protest is sustained, the Navy would have to incorporate some sort of change which would delay the awards. A third scenario is that the Navy looks at the protests and decides to make some changes by taking a corrective action. This likely would cause delays as well.

So the cards are stacked against the Navy as far as making an award in April. And of course, there is always the possibility of protests after an award has been made.