After Protest, U.S. Army Stops JLTV Work

After Protest, U.S. Army Stops JLTV Work (NSI News Source Info) November 10, 2008: The U.S. Army placed a stop-work order on the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program on Nov. 7, the same day Northrop-Oshkosh protested the service's technology-development contract awards. The JLTV program will halt for at least several weeks until an Army-led joint board resolves the appeal. "There will be both a legal examination of the basis of the appeal and a review of the process," a senior Army official said. "They will look at who was on the source selection and look at whether they followed procedures and were objective. The findings will be brought up to the acquisition executive level and might even go all the way up to Mr. Young [Pentagon acquisition chief John Young]. You saw what happened with the tanker protest, where the Air Force did not want to move forward until the appeal was resolved." On Oct. 29, the Army-Marine Corps team selected BAE Systems-Lockheed Martin, BAE-Navistar and General Tactical Vehicles (GTV) to receive 27-month, $60 million development contracts. In their Nov. 7 protest to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Northrop-Oshkosh officials, whose bid was rejected, said they were not told they needed to have a fully assembled demonstrator vehicle. "We were not informed that a demonstrator was a significant factor in the determination of the maturity of the design," Northrop spokesman Jay McCaffrey said. The GAO and Army-led board will examine whether there is a solid case to be made that Northrop-Oshkosh was not told all of the parameters of the JLTV proposal, the Army official said. General Tactical Vehicles, a joint venture between Humvee-maker AM General and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), released a short statement following the stop-work order. "I've been advised by our GTV contracts group that we received notice from the JLTV program contract officer of the formal request and receipt of a Stop Work order last Friday evening. The GTV group has no other comment going forward," Pete Keating, GDLS vice president of communications, said in a written statement.