Irony alert: In its quest to improve management of its finances, the Navy is having trouble managing the contractors who have received tens of millions of dollars to help the service meet congressionally imposed “audit-readiness” deadlines. That’s the takeaway from a newly released review by the Defense Department’s inspector general. One finding: The Navy’s Fleet Logistics Center office in Philadelphia spent $12.6 million on two task orders, “but did not adequately track whether the contractor met the requirements.” The report highlights other shortcomings in how Navy employees oversaw the contracting work, including failing to devise quality assurance plans for some…
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Access into the Washington Navy Yard’s Building 197, where a shooting rampage in Washington left at least a dozen people dead Monday, includes a security clearance check and vetting by contract-hired “visitor control technicians,” contract records show. Authorities have identified Aaron Alexis, 34, a Navy veteran, as the dead gunman. While it’s unclear how Alexis got into the building Monday morning, the Associated Press reported that he may have used someone’s identification. In April, the Navy hired Kansas-based contractor Transtecs Corp. for “visitor control office support services” at the Washington Navy Yard, according to the government’s online procurement database. While…
The Navy today told its employees that furlough letters — which were scheduled to go out Monday — will be delayed until further notice. A Navy official told Federal Times that because the service hadn’t gotten the final furlough policy from the Pentagon, it was putting its notification effort on hold. Unless Navy hears otherwise, it is still expecting to furlough employees for up to 14 days by the end of fiscal 2013. “We understand [the furlough process] causes angst and concern, and to mitigate that, we’ve tried to be as informative as we can,” a Navy official said. “Until…
The Department of the Navy will not award a contract next month for its Next Generation Enterprise Network as planned. Navy officials had originally planned to award one or two contracts by Feb. 12 to develop the massive private network, known as NGEN, but the award date has been pushed back to May 2013. “Due to the complexities of the NGEN requirements, we are changing our contract award estimate in order to ensure a complete and thorough review of offerors’ bids,” Ed Austin, spokesman for the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, said in a statement. Three companies have…
The Navy has awarded a $1.9 billion order for more aerial reconnaissance and sub-hunting aircraft to Boeing, the agency announced Friday. The low-rate initial production award for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft is a modification to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm contract and follows two orders last year for 13 aircraft. The fleet will ” bolster the service’s anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities,” Boeing said in a news release today. Boeing has delivered three of the P-8As, which are based on the company’s 737-800 commercial airplane, the company said. The Navy plans to purchase 117 to replace its P-3 fleet. Most of…
The Navy and Marine Corps are soliciting ideas on how to reduce costs through better management of information technology, efficient business processes and improving cyber-related procurements. Under orders last year to cut information technology budgets by 25 percent over the next five years, the Department of the Navy is consolidating data centers, increasing the use of departmentwide software licenses and reducing cellphone costs. Navy and Marine Corps employees, industry, academia and the public are welcome to make recommendations. Submissions must include a brief discussion of the problem, a proposed scope, key assumptions, constraints and risks, costs, savings and other benefits and operational impacts. Email completed submission forms to…
The Navy on Friday released a revised draft request for proposal to industry for its Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) program. The updated draft reflects comments from industry and Navy stakeholders and will provide further clarification of development requirements for NGEN, the Navy said in a news release. Industry has 10 working days to review and comment on changes to the initial draft, which was released in September. NGEN will replace the current Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) as the world’s largest network. It will serve both sailors and Marines on land and overseas.
The Department of the Navy has already taken steps to reduce information technology costs and cut its overall business IT budget by $2 billion over the next five years. Data center consolidation and greater scrutiny of IT purchases like mobile devices and software are expected to cut costs, said Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen in an interview. “That money has been taken out of those lines for accounting that would support buying those services,” Halvorsen said. “We’re beginning the execution in 2012,” but the savings run from 2013 to 2017. Following Halvorsen’s orders, both services have appointed a so-called Information Technology Expenditure Approval…
The Navy will not release a final request for proposal to industry for its Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) program as planned, according to a post Friday on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The RFP likely will not be released before the end of January 2012, the Navy said in a follow-up news release. Initially, the Navy had planned to release an RFP to industry on Dec. 21. Instead, the Navy will release an update to its draft RFP around Dec. 19 for industry review and comment. The revisions include sections L and M of the draft RFP, which detail…