The Acquisitions Directorate has finally published a Request for Proposal for Construction of the remaining 26 of the planned 58 cutters of the Webber Class. Deadline for submission is June 5.
It appears this might have been done a year earlier. The Coast Guard awarded contracts to Bollinger for units 31 and 32 on 27 Feb 2015 that I don’t believe were options on the original contract. In fact the existence of options should not have precluded contracting with other shipbuilders.
I still must question why there was apparently no attempt to frame this as a Multi-Year Procurement (MYP) rather than a series of options. The Webber class were approved for “full rate production” 18 Sept. 2013. This is an ideal program for a Multi-Year Procurement that might have save more than 10% compared to exercising yearly options. Additionally it would have provided greater incentives for competition.
