US Marine Corps, SELFRIDGE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE: The U.S. Army and Marine Corps co-hosted a three-day pre-proposal conference at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., Feb. 19-21, to inform industry of the U.S. government’s acquisition strategy for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) Program.
JLTV is a Joint Army/Marine Corps program with the Army designated as the lead service.
The conference came two weeks on the heels of the Army’s Feb. 5 release of a Request for Proposal (RFP) which invited suppliers, through a full and open competition process, to submit proposals for the development of a JLTV Family of Vehicles (FoV). The JLTV FoV, and companion trailers, will be capable of performing multiple mission roles, and will be designed to provide protected, sustained, networked mobility for personnel and payloads across the full Range of Military Operations (ROMO).
JLTV provides a vehicle platform which will utilize, to the maximum degree possible, solutions and technology being developed in the Army's Future Combat Systems program, the Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), the Army Research Lab (ARL), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) as well as commercial industry advances. The JLTV FoV will be used by all U.S. services. Several foreign governments have already expressed a strong interest in joining the development of the JLTV vehicles.
Each attendee at the conference received a two-inch thick spiral-bound handout which outlines in detailed fashion the JLTV requirements for mobility, survivability, transportability, communications connectivity, and supportability. In addition, presentations were provided on the Earned Value Management (EVM) process that the JLTV Program will utilize to control cost, stay on schedule and achieve performance objectives.
The conference included numerous presenters from all program areas of expertise who provided industry with detailed guidance on how to craft their proposal to address the four important evaluation factors (Technical, Logistics, Commonality, Cost and Past Performance/Small Business Participation). Additionally, the government shared lessons learned from various research efforts and displayed vehicles developed under the Army’s Future Tactical Truck System Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, and the Office of Naval Research Combat Tactical Vehicle Technology Demonstrator.
Despite a mid-west snowstorm and frigid temperatures in the teens, the conference was attended by 245 industry representatives, along with some International attendees.
“Today was a great meeting at Selfridge and we are excited to be part of this program,” said Kenneth Juergens, JLTV Program Director, Northrop Grumman/Oshkosh Truck Corporation Team, who traveled to the conference from Oshkosh, Wis. Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Corporation announced a teaming arrangement last fall.
To the Army and Marine Corps’ awareness, several industry teaming efforts have been formed to compete for JLTV contracts along with a few companies whose partnering plans are yet unannounced.
They are:
— Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Corp.
— General Tactical Vehicle (AM General & General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS))
— Lockheed Martin and BAE (formerly Armor Holdings)
— BAE Systems and International Military and Government (IMG), LLC (Navistar International Corp.)
— Boeing, Textron and SAIC
— Force Protection Inc. and DRS
— Blackwater Inc.
— Raytheon Inc.
— I3
— DRS Sustainment Systems Inc. and Force Protection Inc.
“I personally got a lot out of this,” said Michael Franklin, a member of the BAE Systems team, who traveled from just outside Los Angeles, Calif., to attend the conference. “You can only get so much information from a [Army’s JLTV] website. This forum allowed time for networking and just talking with others which I found very helpful.”
“This was an important investment of time for key Industry representatives to come to Selfridge in order to fully understand the entire scope and direction of the JLTV effort and hear the government’s ‘lessons learned’ during more than three years of precursor research and development efforts,” said Colonel John “Steve” Myers, Project Manager, Joint Combat Support Systems (JCSS) located on Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Mich. Asked what’s next in the JLTV way ahead, Myers indicated the government will convene an evaluation board in April to review industry proposals to the JLTV RFP.
“The board, comprised of subject matter experts from across the Department of Defense, will evaluate submitted proposals and we expect to make three contract awards based on ‘best value’ to the government in July 2008,” said ‘Myers. “This will then launch the planned 27-month contract performance of the Technology Development Phase wherein the JLTV prototypes will be developed and tested.”
A System Development Demonstration (SDD) phase is currently planned to get underway in 2011 for the JLTV where two contractors will complete the design and development of the JLTV FoV, and companion trailers, and ultimately compete to produce and field multiple JLTV variants.
“Pre-proposal conferences like this one are essential in ensuring that we are as open and transparent as we possibly can be,” stated Lieutenant Colonel Wolfgang Petermann, JLTV Army Product Manager also located at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. “Every large, medium and small business that was represented here, now goes away with the same amount of information knowing it is a level playing field.”
“It is exciting to see how far we have already come in this program,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ben Garza, U.S. Marine Corps JLTV Program Manager located at Quantico Marine Corps Base, Va. “We have an achievable schedule and the overwhelming turnout by Industry is indicative of how successful this program is going to be.”
