Monday, April 27, 2009
Awful Contractors are Awful Generous!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Prop-aganda
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sell Your Sole Source
Ahoy fellow DTDC vigilantes! This week I happened upon a bit of information regarding the intended producers of the BMDCS TR Modules, RF Corp.
"RF Corp. is headquartered in Syracuse, NY. They have been producing high quality T/R modules for over 15 years and have been supplying DTDC contractors with modules for 10 years. DTDC used their T/R modules for the successful AN/TPS-559 and MSTAR programs."
That's not a lot of information, but would more information even be helpful? Probably not. What would be great to know is that if the DTDC is going to buy so many TR modules for their systems, is RF Corp able to establish volume discounts? It'll be like Costco for obsolete technology!
May I have ten thousand marbles, please?
Dean Wormer! DEAD!
Hopes of successful BMDCS execution! DEAD!
Here's some more information on the contractors. Not only are they technical incompetent but programmatically they lack ability, too. Looking at past government records, we find that one company went waaay over Cost on some of their recent projects. They have a long way to go to prove that the million plus dollars spent on each BMDCS will not become 10s of millions. Our next lack-luster participant can't create a Schedule, let alone perform to one. They should have completed their last contract in 4 years. At the 4 year mark they were still figuring out what goes into a successful PDR presentation. The final company gets caught off guard more often a five year old in a fun house. If they don't learn to effectively manage Risk they'll find themselves crying alone in the middle of the mirror maze just like I...never did.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Rich Contractor, Poor Contractor
Of course like so many government initiatives this sounds great on paper, but in the end those companies, even the ones accepting billions of dollars are in no way required to be particularly transparent or responsive. Did you know it can take months to get a response on a FOIA request for money available to contractor?
That time limit is particularly prohibitive for the BMDCS contract. If we had waited until last Friday to file our request we would not recieve a response until well after the contractors had already stolen off with the money and taken their usual egregious profits from the public coffers. Their executives would be buying their next Maseratis before we had a chance to take action!
Luckily, we started watching years ago and filed that FOIA request early in 2007. We now know that the money available to contractor for the BMDCS is approximately ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!1! If that doesn't light a fire under the feet of those already getting burned by the Department of the TDC, what does?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
At least the sea bass are ill tempered
Of course this situation begs the question as to whether or not the contractors are ready to handle the practically inevitable debacle of working with Death Star Systems. How could they possibly compensate for DSS mismanagement when we've already seen in the past that the 3 contractors can barely keep their own systems on time and on schedule?
Its a shame the contracting officer for the DTDC and one of the higher-ups at Death Star Systems went through the same leadership development program together. That essentially means the contractors' hands are tied due to another no-bid contract put in place by the secret society that seems to run shop over there. Does anyone have some good news?
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Awful one and one for awful
As expected the 3 bidders are all relatively large companies with some history building combat systems. Apparently they all had a hand in the development of SHIELD. I'm sure they're all ready to tout their history building combat systems like that makes them qualified. Keep in mind Russia also has a history building communism, America has a history of building democracy on foreign soil, and Microsoft has a history of building operating systems. I have a cousin with a history of cooking chestnuts after Christmas dinner, and every year he ends up with burnt thumbs.
Experience is not to be confused with competence.
In this case we have 3 companies each with their own special trait that makes them woefully unqualified to deliver on this contract. For example, you have one company that couldn't engineer an Radar if they had Skolnik himself on the team. There's another company that thinks they know System design but are in for a rude awakening if they don't correct their reputation. The third musketeer essentially learned all the lessons of "The Mythical Man Month" the hard way and delivered disappointing Mission Software.
All this information comes straight from our source very close to the Department of the TDC. It concerns me knowing that I may have such a close connection to such an evil establishment, but if that's the sacrifice I must make, so be it.
The Truth can be Adjusted
First, let's bring you up to speed on Death Star Systems. Founded in the late 60s by current CEO, M. Clayton, the company makes it's money by provided death dealing lasers to anyone with low enough morals and deep enough pockets to deserve one. Northrop and Raytheon partnered to create a similar system, Talon, which you can see here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcs0d0pDeQA
Their latest line of products, Baseline Shiva, is currently in play for the upcoming DTDC proposal. Apparently the contractors will have a choice between two weapon systems and will have to figure out for themselves which one fits the bill. And what bill is that? That's right, the bill to all of us tax payers for another costly, ineffective combat system.
Until next time, keeping watching.