Month: October 2019

The Defense Logistics Agency awarded the Gorman-Rupp Company an IDIQ contract for the manufacture of Hydraulic Pump Units for the HEMTT vehicles with a maximum potential contract value of $7,245,900.00.  The M978A4 HEMTT Hydraulic Pump Replacement NSN The previous supplier of the old M978A4 HEMTT fuel pump assembly was Coordinated Defense Supply Systems.

Although the DOD contract announcement released yesterday did not mention any specifics to what they are purchasing, we performed some quick research in BidLink to see what we could find.

A quick look at Government contracts Gorman-Rupp was winning turned up some interesting results.  There was a contract awarded in 2016 (Gorman-Rupp CAGE code 25567) for a 5 Year IDIQ contract to manufacture Hydraulic Fuel Pump Units (NSN 4320-01-618-6603) for use on the HEMTT M978A4 Vehicle.

A recent solicitation posted in BidLink (also in FedBizOpps FBO.gov) showed on open government solicitation from DLA Land Warren for a 5 Year IDIQ contract on “Hydraulic Pump Units” from Gorman-Rupp NSN 4320-01-618-6603 used on HEMTT vehicles.

HEMTT Fuel Pump Problems

A few years back there were problems with the fuel pump failing.  The problem was the old pump did not meet build specifications, underwent internal component changes without going through proper ECP processes  ended up having a high catastrophic failure rate due to a defective bearing.  Since the fuel pump is used in  HEMTT tanker fueling operations, it could no longer deliver fuel to the aircraft or vehicles it was providing.

The old M978A4 HEMTT fuel pump assembly NSN was 4320-01-579-1044, part number 03H14A-HYD.  Coordinated Defense Supply Systems (CAGE code 4DEY3) distributor of parts supplied this NSN under contract SPRDL1-11-C-0056.

Today the M978A4 HEMTT Hydraulic Pump replacement NSN is 4320-01-618-6603.  Gorman-Rupp owns the intellectual property of the pump and Oshkosh Defense is the OEM of the HEMMT M978A4.

Contract Number: SPRDL1-20-D-0006
Contract Type: indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ)
Contract Award date: October 10, 2019
Contract Awarded to: Gorman-Rupp Company, stock symbol GRC
Contract CAGE code: 25567
Contracting Office: DLA Land Warren
Depot Level Reparable (DLR)
Procurement operations
Warren, MI 48397-5000

To see further details, contracts, solicitations or perform any of your own research set up a free trial at www.bidlink.net and simply put the NSN to start.

Today October 9, 2019 the Navy awarded Raytheon Company (RTN), $11,954,744.00 to procure spare parts in support of APG-79 radar system on the F/A-18 aircraft.

The APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar System is used on the F/A-18 Super Hornet.  Today’s award – delivery order number N00383-20-F-UX00 was placed against Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) N00383-19-G-UX01.

Work will be performed by Raytheon in its factory in Forest, Mississippi which was expanded in 2015.  Naval Supply Systems Command Weapon Systems Support is the contracting Activity.

BidLink is an on-line tool to quickly find government contract opportunities, review past contract awards, procurement history and a market research tool.  Sign up now for a free trial at www.bidlink.net

The DLA Land and Maritime Batteries & Tires Division is currently looking for suppliers of 12 Volt rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries.  Several government solicitations have been posted in the past few months for the item with NSN 6140-01-642-6920.

This current open solicitation is for Two hundred forty two (242) 12-volt rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries used on the hand carried portable Thales A/N PRC-148 Radio.  This small rechargeable battery, which is about the size of your hand, is fairly expensive when compared to other Li-ion batteries used by the Department of Defense.

We reviewed the Thales PRC-148 Radio Rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery in a previous article.

You can find this solicitation and thousands of others in BidLink, simply put this NSN 6140-01-642-6920 in a Bid Search to see the details. Note that this solicitation closes Friday Oct. 11.

BidLink is an on-line tool to quickly find government contract opportunities, review past contract awards, procurement history and a market research tool.  Sign up now for a free trial at www.bidlink.net

The AN/PRC-148 Radio is a hand carried Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio (MBITR) used by the U.S. Military and numerous countries around the globe.  Thales Defense & Security, Inc. (TDSI) a subsidiary of Thales Group is a French multinational company.  Thales originally produced the PRC-148 Radio for USSOCOM under the name Racal Communications, Inc.

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) awarded the 1st production contract for MBITR radio to Thales.  One of the early contracts we found was posted on December 18, 2002 for production of the AN/PRC-148 Radio it was for 30,000 radios under contract number USZA22-97-D-0019 awarded to Thales, formerly known as Racal Communications, Inc. (RCI).  Thales has continued with production since then.

The AN/PRC-148 MBITR Radio, its batteries and accessories are big business due to the fact of how long they have been produced and used by so many countries.  Newer versions such as the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Enhanced MBITR (JEM) have been introduced.

Most military products evolve over time with continuous improvements resulting in new versions and upgrades to a single product.  Part of this improvement process is solicitations are posted to seek out new incumbents or alternate suppliers.  Recently there have been several open solicitations for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used with the MBITR AN/PRC-148 Radio.

The AN/PRC-148 hand held Radio uses a few different types of batteries, one of the most expensive is a rechargeable lithium-Ion battery costing over $500.00 each.  Recent sales of both NSN 6140-01-487-1153 and 6140-01-642-6920 have been awarded to Thales Defense & Security, Inc.  NSN 6140-01-642-6920, Thales part number 1600842-1 is the more expensive of the two.  The Department of Defense orders both of these rechargeable lithium-Ion batteries on a regular basis.

Defense Study on cost of batteries used in Military hand held radios

In 2012 the Defense Standardization Program Office posted the results of a study that compared the cost of batteries used in hand held radios.  It showed the AN/PRC-148 MBITR battery was about 50% more costly than the AN/PRQ-7 Combat Survivor Evader Locater (CSEL) battery.

The AN/PRC-148 and AN/PRQ-7 rechargeable battery packs are very similar in function, size, and voltage.  Both the AN/PRC-148 and the AN/PRQ-7 use 6 lithium ion 18650 type batteries.

The AN/PRQ-7 battery is somewhat competitive whereas the AN/PRC-148 battery packs supplied by Thales are proprietary.  One main difference among the battery packs was the physical interface to the radios and chargers.

DOD Battery Sales

Selling Batteries to the Defense Department is great business as DOD uses many types of batteries, have short shelf lives and buy a lot of them.

You can do further research on these NSNs yourself by creating a free trial at www.bidlink.net.

BidLink is an on-line tool to quickly find government contract opportunities, review past contract awards, procurement history and a market research tool.  Sign up now for a free trial at www.bidlink.net