From: haferman@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Jeff Haferman)
Subject: Re: Mission to Planet Earth
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 00:38:31 GMT

From article <57302@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, by gpetty@rain.atms.purdue.edu (Grant W. Petty):
> In article <1992Aug14.222632.3632@gvl.unisys.com> hopkins@gvl.unisys.com writes:
>>In article <56844@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> gpetty@rain.atms.purdue.edu (Grant W. Petty) writes:
>>> [...]
>>>>That's why EOSDIS is expected
>>>>to be the largest civil computing contract in history, so I'm told.
>>>>In fact NASA just requested Hughes and TRW (the bidders) to submit new
>>>>cost estimates because the existing estimates were thought to be too low.
>>>
>>>This illustrates why government procurement has such a horrible
>>>reputation for wastefulness.  Why not just say to the lowest bidder,
>>>"OK, that's your estimate and you got our contract based on that
>>>estimate; now we (and the taxpayers) are going to hold you to it, come
>>>hell or high water, and make YOU eat any cost overruns!"
>>
>>Ah, yes, the happy co-operation of a contractor who's taking a bath.
>>It makes for high quality work, good schedule performance, and top-
>>quality equipment.  All the way to Chapter 11.  In your dreams.
>>
>>Seriously, nobody profits from a seriously underbid contract.  The
>>agency has to brow-beat the contractor for every deliverable, the
>>contractor cuts corners wherever he can, claims mount on both sides,
>>lawyers and bean-counters are running the show, schedules are out the
>>window, and nobody is happy *or* getting his money's worth.
>>
>>NASA has a responsibility to ensure that the bids are reasonable.  In
>>this case, they have decided that neither is.  They should be commended.
>>The bidders are being reminded that their bids should be reasonable so
>>that they *can* be held to them.  Otherwise NASA can't rely on the system.
>>
>>	Bill
>>
> 
> 
> My point is that there would probably be fewer seriously underbid
> contracts in the first place if the bidders knew that there would be
> very limited tolerance for overruns.  I have always assumed (perhaps
> simply out of an ingrained distrust of government contractors) that
> some contractors deliberately underbid just to win the contract,
> knowing full well the final costs will probably exceed the bids their
> competitors had entered and that, with a little persistence, they'll
> succeed in squeezing the difference out of Uncle Sam anyway.  At least
> that's the conclusion the public is forced to by press reports of
> chronic defense contract overruns.
> 
> It seems relatively rare that the government requests new bids on
> account of blatantly low estimates, yet it seems relatively
> commonplace for overruns to occur and ultimately be charged to the
> government.  Something is therefore wrong, either with the
> government's ability to spot underbidding or with their willingness to
> fork out more money for overruns, or (possibly) with my perception of
> what is really going on out there.
> 
> Of course, the above issues fade into insignificance in comparison
> with the wasteful funding of so-called Big Science projects that have
> the backing only of politicians and hardware engineers, not scientists
> or the general public.  EOS is frighteningly big, but it at least
> seems to have a generally accepted scientific rationale.  Whereas the
> supposed scientific benefits of the Space Station (and any manned
> mission to Mars) seem to elicit contempt from virtually every
> scientist I have ever spoken to who is not directly funded to do
> something with or for the Space Station.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Grant W. Petty                                gpetty@rain.atms.purdue.edu
> Assistant Prof. of Atmospheric Science        (317) 494-2544
> Dept. of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences     "All standard disclaimers apply"
> Purdue University, West Lafayette IN  47907-1397