March 17, 2014

IN WAKE OF BREACH, Y-12/PX BIDDERS GIVEN CHANCE TO SIGNIFICANTLY MODIFY PROPOSALS

By ExchangeMonitor

Bidders on the combined Y-12/Pantex management contract are being given wide latitude in revising their bids—including submitting new key personnel—in the wake of a stunning July 28 security breach at Y-12. Bids for the contract were submitted in March, but under an amendment sent to the three bidders by the National Nuclear Security Administration late last week and not released to the public, each team will submit a revised proposal to be due in early September. Though oral presentations with the key personnel from each of the teams have already been completed, teams will have the opportunity to revise key personnel in the new submission—a key point for the team led by incumbent Y-12 and Pantex contractor B&W, which has dismissed several site executives believed to be part of its bid for the new contract in the wake of the security scandal. Other bidders include teams led by Bechtel, which is part of the management contractor at both Y-12 and Pantex, and Fluor. If a team chooses to change key personnel, orals would be redone, with the earlier orals scores thrown out. Regardless of whether there are key personnel changes, teams can choose whether or not to redo orals, which will take place about a week after the new proposals are due.

In addition, the amendment allows teams to alter the past performance portion of the proposal to reflect any incidents that have occurred since proposals were submitted and tells bidders to assume a Nov. 2 award date. A four-month transition, not a six-month transition, is now anticipated. The new proposal will also reflect the addition of protective force work in the wake of the security incident, but otherwise the scope remains the same.

NNSA, in a related action last week, also formally moved to eliminate protective force work at its Y-12 and Pantex sites from its planned combined security procurement last week, shifting the competition to the Department of Energy and extending the due date for proposals to Oct. 5. Details of the new procurement aren’t expected to be available until Sept. 7, when a revised Request for Proposals is released, but the agency said in the wake of the security breach at Y-12 that it was scaling back the opportunity and folding the Y-12 and Pantex work back into a combined management and operating contract at the sites. That leaves protective work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the East Tennessee Technology Park and Oak Ridge’s federal office building within the scope of the new contract. With a much slimmed down version of the contract, it remains to be seen how much interest there will be in the contract. But beleaguered incumbent contractor WSI, which has shouldered a large part of the blame for the security breach, is expected to defend its turf, though industry officials expect other companies to pursue the opportunity as a way of potentially loosening WSI’s dominance of the DOE protective force market. Information about the new procurement can be found at http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/external/pforce-seb.

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