The FCS concept is designed to be part of the Army’s Future Force, which is intended to transform the Army into a more rapidly deployable and responsive force that differs substantially from the large division-centric structure of the past. The FCS family of weapons is now expected to include 14 manned and unmanned ground vehicles, air vehicles, sensors, and munitions that will be linked by an advanced information network. Fundamentally, the FCS concept is to replace mass with superior information—allowing soldiers to see and hit the enemy first rather than to rely on heavy armor to withstand a hit. The Army envisions a new way of fighting that depends on networking the force, which involves linking people, platforms, weapons, and sensors seamlessly together in a system of systems. Within the FCS program, eight types of manned ground vehicles are being developed, each having a common engine, chassis, and other components. One of the other common components is a hit avoidance system that features a set of capabilities to detect, avoid, and/or defeat threats against the manned ground vehicles. One of its subsystems is the APS, which is intended to protect a vehicle from attack by detecting a threat in the form of an incoming round or rocket propelled grenade (threat) and launching an interceptor round from the vehicle to destroy the incoming weapon. An APS system consists of a radar to detect the incoming weapon, a launcher, an interceptor or missile, and a computing system. The Army has employed a management approach for FCS that centers on a lead systems integrator to provide significant management services to help the Army define and develop FCS and reach across traditional Army mission areas. Boeing, along with its subcontractor, the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), serves as the lead systems integrator for the FCS system development and demonstration phase of acquisition, which is expected to extend until 2014. The lead systems integrator has a close partner-like relationship with the Army and its responsibilities include requirements development, design, and source selection of major system and subsystem subcontractors. In the case of APS, the first-tier subcontractors are the manned ground vehicle integrators, BAE and General Dynamics Land Systems, who are responsible for developing individual systems. BAE was designated the hit avoidance integrator, a role that covers more than active protection, and was responsible for awarding the subcontract to the APS developer. This subcontract has three elements: a base contract, option A to support the current force (the short-range solution) and option B to support the FCS manned ground vehicles (short- and long-range solution). Figure 1illustrates these relationships. A separate initiative involving active protection resulted from a Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement, issued by Central Command and the Multi-National Corps in Iraq in April of 2005, which requested 14 special- equipped vehicles with a host of distinctive capabilities, one of which was an APS. The need statement called for a capability to field a combination of near-term technologies that would be useful in conducting force protection missions, reconnaissance and crowd control in Iraq and an evaluation of an active protection capability against rocket-propelled grenades as part of this suite of capabilities. To respond to this need statement, the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, a group within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) that seeks solutions to urgent needs and focuses on near-term or off-the-shelf equipment to meet these needs, provided funding to the Army, which worked with the OFT to evaluate various technologies, including an APS, for inclusion on the vehicles. The OFT was also an office within the OSD, and its role was to examine unanticipated needs and experiment with innovative technologies that could be used to meet warfighter needs. Both the process for evaluating APS sources and concepts to meet FCS needs and the urgent needs of the Central Command occurred nearly simultaneously, as shown in figure 3. As can be seen in figure 3, many events took place at the same time. The lead systems integrator for FCS completed its subcontractor selection for APS shortly before decisions were made on the near term system being considered to meet the Central Command need. The Trophy system was evaluated as a candidate system in both processes. In choosing the developer for the APS system, the FCS lead systems integrator, with Army support and concurrence, conducted a source selection and followed the FCS lead systems integrator subcontract provisions for avoiding organizational conflicts of interest. The purpose was to select the subcontractor for the APS that would be best able to develop the overall APS architecture to address the FCS requirements to defeat the short- and long-range antiarmor threats as well as meet the current force needs for defeating short-range rocket-propelled grenade attacks. The subcontractor selected would support the hit avoidance integrator in integrating APS technology into the FCS manned ground vehicles and also apply this architecture to the Army’s current force. The contract included two options that were to supply the specific design for the APS system: Option A for the short-range APS for the current force; and Option B for the short- and long-range solution for the FCS. These options would be awarded later, based on the results of trade studies subsequently performed. To protect against organizational conflicts of interest, contracts between the FCS lead systems integrator and its subcontractors preclude a subcontractor from conducting or participating in a source selection for other FCS subcontracts if any part of its organization submits a proposal. Under normal circumstances, since the APS would be part of the hit avoidance system of the FCS manned ground vehicles, the hit avoidance integrator, BAE, would have had the primary responsibility to issue the requests for proposals, conduct the source selection evaluation, and award the contract. In this capacity, BAE issued a draft request for proposals for the APS in April 2005. When the firm subsequently decided to submit a proposal on the APS subcontract, it was required, under the FCS lead systems integrator subcontract organizational conflict of interest provisions, to notify the lead systems integrator, Boeing, of its intention. BAE did so and the lead systems integrator reissued the request for proposals for APS in September 2005 and assumed the source selection responsibilities. BAE submitted its proposal but then had no further role in the evaluation of proposals or the actual source selection. After the source selection was complete, the lead systems integrator transferred contract responsibility to BAE, and BAE assumed the responsibility for awarding and administering the APS contract. From our review, the documentation from the APS source selection process shows that (1) no officials from the offering companies participated in the source selection process, and (2) all offerors were evaluated based on the same criteria contained in the request for proposals. In response to this request for proposals, four proposals were received. Three proposals were considered competitive, while the fourth was eliminated from consideration as it was considered “unsatisfactory” in technical merit and its architectural approach did not meet the requirements. Proposals from the remaining three companies—BAE, Raytheon, and General Dynamics Land Systems—were evaluated in the source selection process and no officials from these companies were on the evaluating or selecting teams. The source selection evaluation team consisted of 53 members, with 27 lead systems integrator representatives and 26 government representatives, including personnel from the FCS program manager’s office, Army research centers, and the Defense Contract Management Agency. After evaluating each of the proposals against the criteria spelled out in the request for proposals, the source selection evaluation team made its recommendation to the lead systems integrator source selection executive, who accepted itsrecommendation. Our review of the documentation shows that the criteria were ranked in order of importance, with technical merit considered most important, then cost, management/schedule and finally past performance. The technical merit criteria were divided into six sub-factors: systems engineering and architecture; expertise in APS technologies; simulation, modeling and test; fratricide and collateral damage; specialty engineering; and integration capability. Cost criteria were based on the realism, reasonableness, completeness, and affordability of the proposal. Management/ schedule criteria included such areas as expertise and experience in key positions. The past performance risk rating category was based on whether the respondents’ past performance raised doubts about their being able to perform the contract. Since all three proposals were deemed comparable in the areas of cost, management/schedule, and past performance, the primary discriminating factor became technical merit. According to the evaluation documentation, the technical merit scores were assessed based on whether the proposal demonstrated that the contractor understood the requirements and on its approach to meeting these requirements in each of the six technical merit sub-factors. Also, part of the technical score was a proposal risk evaluation, defined as the degree any proposal weaknesses could cause disruption of schedule, increase in cost, or degradation in performance. While the source selection’s stated purpose was to choose the company best able to develop the APS and not a specific design, each proposal used a specific APS system as an “artifact” to illustrate how they intended to meet the requirements. Even though, in theory, one company could have been chosen as the APS developer while another company’s preferred design could have been selected for development, much of the source selection assessment of technical merit was based on the “artifact” used for illustration.