Report: ITV, EFSS programs mismanaged - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Report: ITV, EFSS programs mismanaged

A Defense Department investigation has found that the Marine Corps mismanaged the development of two new vehicles designed to be carried in the MV-22 Osprey and did not follow federal regulations in awarding a 2004 contract for them.

Marine Corps Systems Command mishandled the development of the Internally Transportable Vehicle and the Expeditionary Fire Support System, in part by allowing an early, limited round of vehicles to be produced in 2005 “before the systems had demonstrated acceptable performance in developmental test and evaluation,” according to a new report released by the Pentagon inspector general.

The Corps also incorrectly categorized the programs as nondevelopmental items and underestimated the cost of modifications that were needed to make the vehicles comply with requirements, the report said. Overall, the cost of the contract ballooned from $12.1 million, when it was signed in November 2004 with American Growler Inc., to $107.8 million by July 2008.

“The inability of the EFSS and ITV systems to demonstrate acceptable performance in testing showed that the systems were not technically mature and should not have been approved for entrance into [the early production phase],” the report said. “Their not meeting the systems performance requirements during developmental testing in 2006 and 2007 leads to questions about whether the EFSS and ITV were accurately defined as nondevelopmental items.”

The vehicles, designed to provide Marines with quick transportation after an Osprey lands, are expected to be fielded later this year, Marine officials said. The contract with Growler called for 66 of the fire-support systems, which feature a 120mm mortar pulled on a trailer by a lightweight vehicle, and 650 ITVs, which have no trailer but have a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top.

The investigation was called for in 2007 by Sen. Carl Levin, D.-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, after a Michigan subcontractor that competed for the contract, Rae-Beck Automotive, accused the Corps of unfairly favoring Growler. The inspector general did not substantiate some of the more explosive allegations that Rae-Beck made, including that Growler and its partner in the project, General Dynamics, were given more time than Rae-Beck and its partners to correct problems in testing.

Rae-Beck officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Levin said through a spokesman that the IG’s validation of “some of the concerns” that Rae-Beck raised is “another troubling indicator of the serious problems in our defense acquisition system.

“Given the IG’s findings, I am asking the Marine Corps what actions they will take to remedy this situation,” Levin said.

In written comments included in the 45-page report, Brig Gen. Michael Brogan, SysCom commander, said a review of the facts does not show that there was evidence of a deliberate attempt to avoid federal contract regulations.

“In retrospect, we can question the program’s assessment of risk,” Brogan said in a Nov. 10 written response to the inspector general’s draft report. “That is very different from finding that the EFSS contract was awarded in violation of the law.”

John Garner, the Corps’ program manager for the EFSS and ITV, said Tuesday that the Corps has put training in place to prevent some of the contractual concerns the IG report raised.

“From my perspective, we now have systems that have been determined to meet the need and requirement and have been determined to be effective and suitable,” Garner said. “They made recommendations in the DoD IG audit that we agreed to implement, and we have implemented all of the recommendations they made.”