Manufacturer's bid for surveillance contract disqualified as rival offer goes to member governments without RFP
Raytheon is challenging a verdict by a NATO committee that eliminates the company's bid for the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) contract.
The Raytheon-led Cooperative Transatlantic AGS Solution (CTAS) team claims that NATO is improperly moving forward on a contract award before launching a formal solicitation, and has drawn up the sensor criteria to favour the larger aircraft proposed by the Northrop Grumman-EADS Transatlantic Industrial Proposed Solution (TIPS) team.
"We're just scratching our heads, and asking ourselves: 'How can this happen?'" says Raytheon business development director for CTAS Robert Bushnell. "We're finding this process to be a little bit confusing."
Flight International has learned that the CTAS bid has been disqualified by NATO's Conference of National Armament Directors (CNAD). NATO has submitted a TIPS-based proposal to NATO's member governments for review, and responses were due to be filed as Flight International went to press.
NATO says a decision is expected "as soon as possible", but any decision could be delayed if a member submits questions or objections. EADS says it has not been informed of any decision.
Raytheon's CTAS team, which also includes BAE Systems, is proposing a platform based on the Bombardier Global Express business jet, while the TIPS concept uses the larger Airbus A321.
Raytheon understands that the CNAD has made underlying assumptions on the weight of the still-undefined Transatlantic Cooperative AGS Radar (TCAR), that may have undermined the CTAS bid. CNAD's sensor concept "would tend to favour a larger aircraft", says Peter Wray, Raytheon director of strategy and business development for integrated airborne systems.
But Raytheon argues that TCAR, which is expected to borrow from advanced US and European radar technologies, will certainly weigh less than an older-technology sensor aboard the UK's developmental Airborne Stand-off Radar aircraft, which is also based on the Global Express. "We believe we have many hundreds of pounds of margin," says Wray.
The pace of NATO's decision-making also has caught Raytheon by surprise. In June, both teams received contracts to develop concept studies for their proposals, which were delivered on 12 January. A request for proposals was expected to follow, says Raytheon, but the NATO committee has skipped this step and advanced to a contract selection.
Raytheon is "troubled" by a contract decision that will be based on incomplete technical proposals and "rough order of magnitude pricing" with no cost guarantees, says Bushnell, who adds that there has been little communication from NATO since oral presentations were delivered on 29 January.
At that time, Raytheon understood that it had delivered a fully compliant proposal that was at least €1.7 billion ($2 billion) cheaper than the TIPS solution.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / LONDON & PETER LA FRANCHI / CANBERRA
Source: Flight International
