Description
Organization: NAVSUP, NAVICP
Team Name: Navigation Guidance Systems (NGS) Team
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Commercial and Non Developmental Items (CANDI), Direct Vendor Delivery (DVD), Guaranteed Operational Effectiveness, Performance Based Acquisition, Performance Based Logistics, Performance Specs and Standards, Total System Performance Responsibility
Description:
The Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP) Navigation Guidance Systems (NGS) Performance Based Logistics Team is hereby nominated for a Department of the Navy Acquisition Certificate of Achievement. This nomination is submitted in recognition of the Team's award of an innovative, performance based, Best Value contract to Marconi Astronics Corporation in the amount of $4.9 million for the acquisition and subsequent life-cycle logistics support of an advanced fiber optic Navigation Guidance System (NGS). The Navy expects to enjoy a ten-year cost savings of $23.6 million as a result of this effort.
This new production system was obtained through full and open competition and will initially be utilized to replace the sole-source navigation system currently flown on F-14D and T-45A aircraft. In addition, the contract was structured so as to allow for mission growth of the new system into other aircraft platforms, as well as use by other Department of Defense (DOD) services and the Foreign Military Service (FMS) community.
The NGS Team developed its competitive break-out acquisition strategy after identifying the existing sole-source F-14D and T-45A navigation system as a poor performing system that utilized outdated technology, had high support costs, and experienced low reliability (an average mean-time between failure (MTBF) of only 200 hours). The Team recognized that it needed to obtain an affordable replacement system that incorporated state of the art commercial fiber optic technology.
The NGS Team created a competitive opportunity through its development of a performance specification for a form, fit, and function plug-in replacement to the old navigation system. This created a situation whereby the full range of private sector technical solutions could be offered to the Navy. In addition, the Team maximized its competitive leverage by including Performance Based Logistics (PBL) life cycle support as one of the evaluation factors in the competitive solicitation. The Team felt that it was imperative to ensure supportability costs and concerns were addressed as part of the competitive acquisition process, as opposed to after selection of the successful offeror.
The end result was a contract for a high quality, highly reliable, operationally superior system that utilizes the latest commercial non-developmental technology. And, the contract's PBL clauses require the contractor to provide superior logistics support, while maintaining responsibility for introducing innovations and efficiencies that help to further reduce total life cycle costs.
The primary PBL metrics incorporated into the contract were the reliability and availability guarantees. The reliability guarantee requires the contractor to maintain an average system MTBF of 11,200 hours throughout the system's life cycle. The availability guarantee requires the contractor to ensure that, upon receipt of an electronic fleet customer requisition, a replacement system will be received by the fleet user at a continental United States site within two business days.
In order to ensure this PBL program is successful, and to provide an incentive for the contractor to meet the performance metrics, a Loaner Spares provision is included in the contract. In the event the contractor does not meet the performance metrics, it must provide temporary loaner spares at no cost to the Government thus ensuring continued fleet readiness.
Of special note is the fact that the Navy neither buys nor holds any wholesale inventory. Responsibility rests completely with the contractor to determine and stock the levels of inventory it needs to maintain in order to meet the contract availability requirement. In addition, the contractor is responsible for repairing or replacing all failures for 15 years (at no additional charge), and has complete obsolescence management responsibility. These features provide a built-in incentive for technology insertion.