Alion prevails over Raytheon in fight for $53M Army contract

The Government Accountability Office denied Raytheon’s protest of an Army award to Alion Science & Technology, clearing the way for the company to start work on the $53 million contract.

The contract is for services to help the Army determine how to extend the life of its current landing craft.

When Alion won the contract, Raytheon challenged the evaluation of Alion’s technical and cost proposals and the best-value determination that led the Army to pick Alion even though its bid was $3 million more than Raytheon, according to the GAO decision.

The two were competing for a contract to re-engineer the power requirements of the Army’s Landing Craft Utility 2000 vessel. The craft has two main engines, two service diesel generator, an emergency generator and a bow thruster engine. The Army is looking for ways to boost the electrical output of the engines.

When Alion won, Raytheon filed a protest saying Alion’s engine proposal would increase the electrical output and that the engine from Caterpillar was a new product and represented a performance risk because it was new.

GAO rejected these arguments and said that the Army’s decision was reasonable and followed the criteria in the solicitation.

GAO also made short work of Raytheon’s challenge to the best value evaluation. Alion outscored Raytheon on technical maturity, reciving an outstanding to Raytheon’s good.

And in small business participation, Alion scored outstanding and Raytheon only mustered a marginal.

The source selection authority documented its decision and put more weight on the technical maturity score which GAO said was consistent with the terms of the solicitation. Alion’s price premium was justified because of the higher technical score, which gave the SSA the confidence that Alion was a lower risk choice.