New UK Military Aviation Authority, which grew out of Nimrod Review Report on 2006 crash of Nimrod XV230 sea control aircraft, kicks off with mandate to regulate military airworthiness.
US DoJ is suing KBR for improperly charging the US Army for private armed security from 2003 to 2006 under the LOGCAP 3 logistics contract in Iraq. KBR says its hiring of private armed security was “reasonable, necessary and appropriate.”
Frost & Sullivan: US Army purchases of VSAT communication capacity spurs VSAT providers revenues but prompts worldwide bandwidth shortage.
If you want to keep track of key Pentagon programs, Selected Acquisition Reports are an important resource. Shortly after the defense budget is submitted, the Pentagon releases details on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule, and performance changes on a periodic basis, summarizing the latest estimates of a major program’s cost, schedule, and technical status. Quarterly SARs are submitted for initial reports, final reports, and for programs that are rebaselined at major milestone decisions. Subsequent quarterly exception reports are required only for those programs experiencing unit cost increases of at least 15%, or schedule delays of at least 6 months.
There are a number of ways programs can fall into a SAR report. The most routine is when their program baseline is first entered into the SAR set. The most troubling path to re-appearance involves technical development difficulties and/or cost spirals on the contractor’s end. The most benign re-appearance happens when the US military orders more units than it had planned to, something that would normally be seen as success. Cuts can also trigger a SAR report appearance, however, as the same number of research dollars are divided across fewer units produced. In a similar vein, self-inflicted “cost-cutting” schedule delays may save money in one budget year, but the actions they force often increase overall program costs, and may show up in a SAR. The April 2010 SAR, which tracks programs to the end of December 2009, has an interesting motif.
In late March 2010, they added to that portfolio with a “long term strategic Terms of Business Agreement” with the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), per Britain’s Defence Industrial Strategy. The agreement confirms Babcock as the MoD’s key overall support partner in the maritime sector from 2010-2025. During that period, Babcock will undertake specific roles and to perform particular types of engineering work as requested, in support of the Royal Navy’s major warships and nuclear-powered submarines, while extending Babcock’s management roles at the Clyde and Devonport Naval Bases from 2013-2025. In return for a “forward work program” of about GBP 2.5 billion (currently $3.8 billion) that’s reliable enough to be entered on corporate financial accounts, Babcock commits to meet performance targets, and deliver about 15% guaranteed cost savings to the MoD. Savings above the committed levels will be shared between Babcock and the MoD. Babcock release [PDF].
The US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee term contract worth up to $52.8 million to ITT Corp.’s Advanced Engineering Services Division in Alexandria, VA for research and development in the areas of information architecture and related technology.
The initial order is for $9.9 million, but, if all options are exercised, the cummulative value would reach $52.8 million.
Under this contract, ITT will provide design and development of information processing systems, decision support systems, database structure and mining, applications of parallel and distributed computing and software…
