Design, systems bids for national shipbuilding strategy due Friday
Feds, Irving to select winning consortium later this year
Friday is the deadline for companies to hand in their revised technical proposals for Canada’s multibillion dollar warship procurement. Irving is the prime contractor for the combat portion of the government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy.
Bidders hoping to cash in on the federal government’s massive multibillion dollar warship procurement have until Friday to hand over their final proposals.
The Chronicle Herald confirmed Tuesday that one of the three teams in the running, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin Canada, has already submitted its final package for evaluation and the other two consortiums of Navantia and SAAB; and Alion Canada, Damen, and Atlas are on track to submit theirs by the deadline.
Though the request for proposals for a combined warship design and combat systems integrator closed on Nov. 30 last year, at the end of May the government’s evaluation team began providing bidders with feedback on areas that needed attention and gave the teams until July 20 to submit their revised technical proposals. The financial bids, which had not yet been submitted, are also due Friday.
This new system that allowed bidders to adjust their bids following feedback is referred to as the cure process, which the government claims will ensure maximum competition.
Irving Shipbuilding is the prime contractor for the combat portion of the government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy and will build a fleet of 15 Canadian Surface Combatants at its Halifax shipyard, with a budget of $56 billion to $60 billion, starting in the 2020s. It will also have a say, alongside the federal government, in selecting the winning bidder.
A spokesperson for Canada’s Combat Ship team — a name that Lockheed and BAE have given their partnership — told The Chronicle Herald that after years of hard work there is genuine excitement among the team after submitting their final bid on Tuesday.
“We are promising billions of dollars in innovation across Canada’s priority areas and we estimate we will generate an immense global market of exports from international sales,” the spokesperson said.
For the ship design component, BAE Systems is offering its Type 26 Global Combat Ship — long rumoured to be a favourite of Royal Canadian Navy officials and arguably the most modern vessel of its kind in the world. For the combat systems on board, Lockheed Canada is putting forward its Canadian-designed CMS 330. This is a newer version of the combat management system Lockheed designed for the Royal Canadian Navy’s original Halifax-class ships and is present on Canada’s modernized frigates.
The U.K. navy is currently in the process of procuring eight Type 26 anti-submarine warfare frigates, and just last month the Type 26 was selected as the winning design in Australia’s SEA 5000 program — their government will be building nine.
Bruce Samuelson, chief operating officer for Alion, said he feels that his team’s submission offers a balance between capability and risk while meeting all the navy’s technical requirements.
Alion Canada is leading a bid that includes Damen’s Dutch De Zeven Provinciën class LCF frigate design and an Atlas Electronic combat systems kit.
“It’s a military off the shelf design, which is what the Crown and the shipyard have asked for,” Samuelson said.
“The procurement itself was all focused on this balance of capability versus risk, and risk was assessed by how much does the baseline design have to be changed. Our design requires very few changes to adapt to the Canadian requirements so there’s that balance.”
Samuelson said during the bid process his team worked under the assumption that the importance of that proven, off-the-shelf component was sacrosanct, and if the government makes a decision to take a design that has not yet actually been utilized by any navy — referring to the Type 26 — that will be a significant deviation from the original intent of the procurement.
“As engineers and as technologists, there’s a natural desire to want to improve (our design). We have laid down the law on our team to ensure that the requirements laid out in the procurement, which is this balance of capability versus risk, were adhered to,” he said.
“If the Crown makes a decision to take a design that’s not in the water, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do to my board.”
BAE’s “paper ship” design — one that is still in the design and construction phase — has long been a concern for the company’s competitors, even prompting accusations of bid-rigging by the government earlier in the process when the requirements were allegedly expanded to allow for the Type 26 in the competition.
But speaking with media and industry experts at a roundtable discussion on the SEA 5000 program on Monday, Gary Fudge, VP of Canadian naval systems programs with Lockheed Martin, said if Canada were to select the Type 26 there will already be several vessels of that class in the water by the time Canada’s program gets underway.
“We feel we’re right in the sweet spot where the risk of the program will be down because we’ll be on ship four or five, but not too deep in that we can procure the equipment and systems that are standard on the ship,” he said.
The Chronicle Herald was not able to reach anyone from Navantia for comment, but a spokesperson confirmed they will be submitting their finalized technical proposal and their financial proposal by Friday. Navantia’s team is offering up a design based on the F-105 anti-submarine warfare frigate used by the Spanish navy.
Rania Haddad, a departmental spokeswoman, said in an email that once Public Services and Procurement Canada receives all bids on Friday, officials will then proceed with the remainder of the technical evaluation and the financial evaluation.
“Once the evaluation is complete, the Government of Canada and Irving will select and announce a preferred bidder,” she said. “Contract awards will follow later in 2018, and the start of ship construction remains scheduled for the early 2020s.”
