maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
The funny part of that statement is if you look at the specifications for the latest assortment of SOF rovers and movers, they are just about the same size as the WW2 MB or GPW Jeep.
CF small arms trial completed
- Thread starter Savage
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The funny part of that statement is if you look at the specifications for the latest assortment of SOF rovers and movers, they are just about the same size as the WW2 MB or GPW Jeep.
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ground Zero
The US RFP was nothing like the Canadian RFP. The challenge to the US RFP was actually based on suggestingnwhat the reqhirements should be.
However ramparts challenge wasnt based on what the RFP should say, just merely what it does say is unfair, exclusionary, and without justification. The Canadian Military had every opportunity to defend the validity of their RFP and they couldnt.
Did you even read the RFP?
And for what its worth, everyone is trying to build a plane to defeat the f35 because everyobe wants to be able to hold their own against the USAF. And if anyone has a plane that can go tow to toe with the F35 it will be shot down by an F22...you know, the plane that actually works.
I doubt you are ever going to garner much support for releasing civilian oversight on spending taxpayers dollars. Let the General Officers decide on what they need , prioritize the list and try to fit them in the Federal Budget. You can tweak the process however the fundamental understanding of civilian oversight is not going to change. If you have a pro military Government in power your going to get more support eg Harper's Conservatives. I doubt you will find much support from the current Liberals or for that matter any Liberal Gov't. Watch what they do not what they say.
Take Care
Bob
Take Care
Bob
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ground Zero
No. The military is incompetent in everything it tries to buy and is subject to oversight.
Which is a good thing.
Military procurement without such oversight would be even worse than what we have now. The problem with the military being able to learn the jard way that they bought the wrong thing is your money is all spent and then you have to live with the crap equopment for the next 30 years.
There are examples of the military's hands being tied by procurement rules that the military should be exempt from, such as Canadian content and canada first procurement rules. And when you get into the big ticket items with budgets in Bs there is far too much political interference and corporate lobbying. Just ask Scott Brison about supply ship contracts.
CAF Tech Staff would've written the technical terms in the RFP. PSPC handles the boiler plate, bidding and contracting. Been this way for a while, and for good reason. Military doesn't know how to contract, and PSPC usually can't get the RFP technical wording down without inadvertently opening the door to underqualified bids. The fact that this is being challenged speaks to how narrow the Tech Staff wrote the terms in order to ensure they got the Sig. I've seen this go the other way where we wanted a Telerob robot and ended up with an Allen Vanguard because the technical terms were watered down out of fear that the tech terms were too prescriptive.
What's baffling here is how a program that is essentially a budgetary rounding error could get snagged this badly. The CAF spends more in tires annually. Proceed with the Sig and then go fight it out in court.
What's baffling here is how a program that is essentially a budgetary rounding error could get snagged this badly. The CAF spends more in tires annually. Proceed with the Sig and then go fight it out in court.
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ground Zero
This post is a perfect example of why MIlitary procurement is broken, and why military tech staff shouldn't be involved in tenders.
It is contrary to the very basic core principles of open competition for a customer to say "what we wanted was a Telerob".
What you want is utterly irrelevant. utterly and completely irrelevant. Procurement is about giving the soldier (not DLR) what they NEED. And then PSPC goes out and conducts a tender to solicit bids from industry who thinks they have a solution to your problem. In its simplest terms, DND should never be going out to procure a drill with a 1/4" drill bit. DND should putting out a tender for a device that can make 1/4" wholes under the following conditions....
DND tech staff lack the education, experience, tools, networking and common sense necessary to define what equipment they should be buying. This has been proven again and again and again. This is what industry is for. DND defines the problem, Industry provides the solution. DNDs role is to simply evaluate them based on the published criteria and define a winner.
If you start off the RFP drafting process having decided which bidder and product you want to win, then you are doomed to fail. And this is the lesson that tech staff and DLR folks have been failing at, and failing to learn, for two decades. And when they put people on the tech staff course, what they should really do is walk them the shop floor for ten minutes, but then put them in a room with the accountants for five days to explain to them how much it costs everyone to keep participating in flawed in tenders.
Just look at the escalating costs of CCV from RFP 1 to RFP 2 to RFP 3. The reason the cost was going up wasn't just inflation. It was because every time the bid restarted the companies had to try to recover the sunk costs of the first failed bid, and add a risk premium to factor in the uncertainty, and every shifting compliance requirements.
Look at the Integrated Soldier System Project. DND Tech Staff spent more money trying to decide how to evaluate the system then they eventually spent on the system, only to have the system go on the shelf the minute they bought it because the it took so long to buy it that the equipment is years out of the date the minute its delivered, and its based on specifications that were 3 years out of date before it even went to tender.
In the end their unit cost is well over $15,000 a unit for what is essentially an encrypted cell phone with a NATO 2525 enabled Google Maps app.
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Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ground Zero
And don't even get me started on the revolving door between the big Defence Companies, the "independent consultants" and DLR. Too many times a DLR PM signs a contract to buy something from company x and before the ink is dry that PM has retired and now works at the company.
Either we want a fair tendering process where there are rules, they are followed, and the government actually procures equipment with taxpayer funds in a an ethical and transparent process, or they don't. If they don't want a fair process, fine. Don't be surprised when the occasional bribery happening behind closed doors becomes standard practice and open knowledge. Just be clear about what we are doing here.
My experiences with DLR and Tech Staff's are different that yours. My MOC (mostly) picked the right people who had an aptitude for the task. We generally got what we needed, Allen Vanguard aside.
But if you think that the CAF bungles things badly, then you haven't spent nearly enough time working with PSPC.
Either way, if it were up to me, the UOR approach to procurement would utilized much more often for these types of issues. This isn't a frigate replacement. It worked for Afghanistan. We've got troops in eastern Europe right now carrying Brownings. Call Sig Sauer and the LegAd. Problem solved. It just takes some balls and the realization that no matter how well intentioned, some things are going to end up in court. There are literally armies of lawyers looking for weakness in tenders and contracts to exploit. Lost the bid, take it to court. And why not, the CAF has a long history of gigantic settlements.
Fortunately I'm in the private sector now, so we merely buy what we like. Thank goodness for that.
- Location
- WMU248 near Edmonton
well procurement is a problem
I work with procurement and I am one of the very few military, most are civilian DND employees, and PSPC is often even more difficult to deal with.
You get someone walking into your office saying Oh I want this, see I did my research and here is the website......
They don't like having to actually put together a RFP and define what they need, they all can tell you what they want. Its not the same. Oh and this guy may or not be the Technical Authority (TA) he may send you some poor smuck
I then have to guide them (the TA) through the process of defining the need and getting all the documents ready for industry. The problem is my limits are very low and I have to take the package (after translation) and send it off to PSPC where they review it and add in all the extra clauses for tall the different trade agreements. Sometimes they will ask that the wording in the RFP be changed but they are not experts and rarely know what it is that they are tendering.
Then there is the bid package review, and then back to sitting down with the TA and 2 other poor smucks to review all the bid proposals and rate the proposals on their technical merits, line by line and that all the Mandatory requirements have been met. Score all the bids then open the financial packages and based on whatever formula was in the solicitation package the winning bidder.
then back to PSPC who will then work with the winning bidder, and all the other bidders who may file a grievance to put a contract in place.
people hate me.
I work with procurement and I am one of the very few military, most are civilian DND employees, and PSPC is often even more difficult to deal with.
You get someone walking into your office saying Oh I want this, see I did my research and here is the website......
They don't like having to actually put together a RFP and define what they need, they all can tell you what they want. Its not the same. Oh and this guy may or not be the Technical Authority (TA) he may send you some poor smuck
I then have to guide them (the TA) through the process of defining the need and getting all the documents ready for industry. The problem is my limits are very low and I have to take the package (after translation) and send it off to PSPC where they review it and add in all the extra clauses for tall the different trade agreements. Sometimes they will ask that the wording in the RFP be changed but they are not experts and rarely know what it is that they are tendering.
Then there is the bid package review, and then back to sitting down with the TA and 2 other poor smucks to review all the bid proposals and rate the proposals on their technical merits, line by line and that all the Mandatory requirements have been met. Score all the bids then open the financial packages and based on whatever formula was in the solicitation package the winning bidder.
then back to PSPC who will then work with the winning bidder, and all the other bidders who may file a grievance to put a contract in place.
people hate me.
Cameron SS
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Ground Zero
Most of the folks inside of CAF working on the procurement side are 'good people' who are 'well intended' and 'working hard' to get the CAF what it 'needs'. There are many problems with the system, and no easy solution. I don't think the people employed in that role are unintelligent. But I've seen people spend two years doing a project definition with the intent of putting CAF on the leading edge of a particular capability, and genuinely looking to partner with DRDC and industry to develop a cutting edge solution, only to be laughed at during a SOIQ because their specs were 3 years behind the times.
DND and CAF commonly try to invent something new, that doesn't exist, by cobbling together a product that includes features from various competing products and purchase it as an 'off the shelf solution'. Ever hear the phrase "requirements definition by Google"?
Part of the problem, especially for the relatively small dollar stuff, is simple military culture. I get that pilots aren't going to be permitted to out and chose their own jets based on what they are more comfortable with, but when it comes to gloves, glasses and boots, who honestly cares if everyone is dressed the same? Too many projects are run at the national level, that should be handled as a local purchase. Who cares if PPCLI and RCR carry different service pistols? Do you know why the Military Police got their Sig 225s two decades ago?
When the CAF buys pistols once every 30 years, yeah, the pistol sellers are going to pull out all the stops to win. If DLR and the RSMS wrapped their head around the idea that not everything needs to be a national program, or a CAF wide standard, then the projects would be smaller, faster, less costly for everyone, soldiers wouldn't have to live with bad procurements for nearly as long, and industry wouldn't be going to wall if they lose because the next tender is around the corner.
I can't remember the last time that CAF had a truly Unforecasted Operational Requirement. Its more like we went off on an operational with kit that we should have had all along, that Cabinet decided not to buy, and now the Military is trying to play I told you so, in order to get the kit they wanted all along. I saw several UORs land in theatre and there was nothing Unforecasted about it. Just a failure of DLR to procure the equipment on time, and people using the UOR process to short circuit proper procurement channels. Ever seen any data on what percentage of UOR equipment was 'lost or damaged' or never properly entered into anyones DA?
I too am in the private sector now. I do buy what I want. And I sell to the government. Its interesting sitting on the other side of the table.
- Location
- On the beach
One of the best things about being around at the start of a CANSOF unit was having our own FD people and loads of freedom in buying as everything was a "we need this capacity/capability yesterday" situation. The Army didn't like it, but we got kit we needed, and more importantly, the kit we wanted. And did it quickly.
Things have changed now.
Things have changed now.
- Location
- WMU248 near Edmonton
well when someone buys a tractor trailer to move kit and then abandons it at the airport in France, and the way they found out about it was a bill for parking shows up....... perhaps there needed to be a little oversight on CANSOF
Granted a bit obscure, the initial suite of EROC (Husky/Buffalo/Cougar) definitely was UOR. Later variants of the Husky GPR and Buffalo with Surveillance Package (circa 2011) were a more deliberate route clearance program triggered by Afghanistan. But we literally created doctrine around the kit after the fact. The ILDS system (ROV M113 with Pearson Mine Plough) was quickly deemed unsuitable for route clearance as it was designed for clearing cluster munitions off of runways in Europe, necessitated the initial EROC panic purchase. I was under the impression the RG-31 was part of that package, but I'm not certain.
Anyway, I get it. The whole thing is frustrating and my stress level is better now that I'm no longer part of it
As an aside; Not sure if this is urban legend (I haven't read this entire thread so it may have already come up), but I was told by friends in DLR that the Hi-Power clung on because there were never sufficient TFRs and UCRs from the field to bring enough attention to its shortcomings to trigger a replacement program. As you mentioned along with a few others, by the time I left (2015) it was becoming comical how many others were using some variant of the Sig Sauer. MPs, Navy, CANSOF, CPP... The worst part was being formally trained on and carrying the DA/SA P226 for years only to go back to the Browning years later with the muscle memory from the P226 burned in from thousands of rounds fired. Nothing worse than trying to disengage the safety from the Hi-Power after squeezing down on it like it was going to be a DA P226 trigger pull
- Location
- On the beach
Oh it definitely got a little "kids with a credit card"....but the current system swings the complete opposite. Neither is good
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Buying handguns is symbolic.
I had a conversation with an AERE LCol who was doing a staff rotation in NDHQ, and hating it! She had been the project officer for the DASH-whatever navigation trainer modernization contract. But it was written as a sinecure for someone's aerospace company, not to actually deliver good airplanes. Everytime one supplier went out of business, they'd need to modify the contract but no one wanted to actually deliver the last airplane. Consequently every tail number was just a little different and there were maybe ten on the flightline, and it would be time for the first one to go back in for refit. If there were problems with compliance, she'd had an Air Force general on the phone telling her off. She said the only reason for the politics and the pressure was because it had wings. I agreed because when the army buys trucks or raincoats there isn't 1% of the same public attention.
I had a conversation with an AERE LCol who was doing a staff rotation in NDHQ, and hating it! She had been the project officer for the DASH-whatever navigation trainer modernization contract. But it was written as a sinecure for someone's aerospace company, not to actually deliver good airplanes. Everytime one supplier went out of business, they'd need to modify the contract but no one wanted to actually deliver the last airplane. Consequently every tail number was just a little different and there were maybe ten on the flightline, and it would be time for the first one to go back in for refit. If there were problems with compliance, she'd had an Air Force general on the phone telling her off. She said the only reason for the politics and the pressure was because it had wings. I agreed because when the army buys trucks or raincoats there isn't 1% of the same public attention.
Come on Terry! Considering how long it took to get a decent raincoat, felt pretty symbolic
