C-130J: 13 months to issue Request for Proposal
Why did it take so long for Lockheed Martin to be "deemed the only supplier to meet mandatory requirements"? It would seem it took a lot of time for discussions about these things (read Quebec):
As part of the RFP, Lockheed Martin Corporation will now be required to submit a formal bid. This will include a priced proposal confirming the supplier’s compliance with the mandatory requirements and other criteria, including contractual obligations for the provision of Industrial and Regional Benefits (IRB), equal to 100% of the contract value...And it's still going to take until the end of the year to finish negotiations on the benefits. Good grief. I sure hope the US military will let us jump the line and get a few planes faster:
The Government expects to award a contract for tactical airlift aircraft in winter 2007. Delivery of the first aircraft is scheduled for winter 2010.On June 16 the MND was saying he hoped the contract could be signed in a couple of months. Politics, politics, politics...
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 2:41 p.m.
5 Comments:
A couple thoughts:
1) The 80/20 rule, aka the principle of diminishing marginal returns. Let's spend 20% of the time figuring out how to get 80% of the value for the regional benefits, etc, rather than way longer trying to eke out that last 20% of value. However, this parlays into another thought...
2) Neither the Government of Canada nor the Lockheed Martin Corp. are going anywhere (check the bond ratings), so let's do something ground breaking and start building the planes after a sensible short period so we are all on the same page. Then, while they are under construction, we can chitty chat about what can be done where, who can be trained if need be, etc.
Some folks along the way are missing the big picture, which is, our military needs the planes ASAP. Having Jacques Sixpack in a support job in Little City, Quebec is pretty far down the list of importance.
As far as I'm concerned, the current procurement process is borderline criminal, and someone in our wonderful bureaucracy needs to have the Kelly Johnson 14 rules branded on their forehead.
amazing.
We can a C17 on the ramp in Trenton in six months but can't get an RFP out the door in a timely manner.
I smell the skanky EADS/Airburst A400M sales team at work here. . . .
Hey at least we're talking about a real airplane now.
Cameron:
+1.
Mark
Ottawa
As a non-Canadian (but with the greatest respect), can offer an observation:
It's not the bureaucrats that are the problem. It's a rule that requires 100% offsets. You guys are practically alone in the Western world in demanding this level of compliance in each and every project. If you introduced greater flexibility into the procurement rules (which is a political decision -- requiring bipartisan support), your bureaucrats could deliver quick results on the programs that required hastened delivery.
Just a thought.
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