The Arizona Republic April 8, 2009
ArmorWorks Enterprises loses bid protest
By Andrew Johnson
An independent government agency has again rejected a protest by Chandler-based ArmorWorks Enterprises LLC, which alleged it lost a billion-dollar body armor contract because of inconsistent Army testing.
ArmorWorks was knocked out of competition for the defense contract last July after the company's armor-plate samples failed ballistics tests the Army conducted.
The company filed two protests with the Government Accountability Office, which determines contracting disputes, claiming the Army used inaccurate testing methods on its armor plates. The GAO denied the protests in September, saying ArmorWorks did not file its protests in a timely manner and failed to prove how alleged testing errors hurt the company.
ArmorWorks makes armor products for soldiers, vehicles and aircraft. The company was one of four companies the Army invited to submit armor-plate samples for a potential contract worth as much as $1 billion.
ArmorWorks filed a third protest with the GAO following the release of a report by the Defense Department's watchdog arm in January. That report found the Army conducted inadequate testing of certain armor plates procured from ArmorWorks under a previous contract the company had won.
The findings prompted the Army to pull 16,400 sets of ArmorWorks body armor despite the Army's insistence that the armor was safe.
Although the Defense Department report pertained to a different testing method than the one used in the contract ArmorWorks lost, the company claimed the findings supported its earlier arguments for why its bid should be reconsidered.
But in its most recent decision released Tuesday, the GAO said the Defense Department report was of "limited relevance" to ArmorWorks' protests because it dealt with different testing methods and contracts.
ArmorWorks representatives did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
The Army's decision to eliminate ArmorWorks from the running for a contract and the GAO's subsequent protest rejections could pose future contracting challenges for the company, said John Pike, a director with defense research firm GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.
On the other hand, safety issues like the ones revealed in the Defense Department report are not surprising given the intense pressure armor makers were under at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he said.
"Previously that was a pretty exotic product," Pike said. "You had an industry that was accustomed to small-scale production suddenly dealing with large-scale demand."
Sweeping changes to defense spending proposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday could bode well, though, for armor manufacturers such as ArmorWorks.
One such proposal includes eliminating a portion of the Army's technology modernization program that calls for lighter vehicles with less armor and putting more emphasis on Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.
ArmorWorks has received contracts to provide special protective seats for the MRAP vehicles, which contain more armor than what is called for under the Army's modernization program.
ArmorWorks can request the GAO to reconsider its most recent decision within 10 days of receiving the report, which occurred March 31, GAO attorney Michael Golden said.
© Copyright 2009, The Arizona Republic
