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Guest Vern Edwards

Boof:

Are you buying vehicle armor and specifying the use of a brand name vehicle as a testbed, or are you buying armored vehicles and specifying the delivery of a brand name vehicle?

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We are soliciting armoring companies (full and open I think, unless we still have the IDIQ contract we used to have) to purchase and armor a specific brand of vehicle. The J&A states it is the only known vehicle of its passenger capacity that has right hand drive and runs on dirty diesel overseas. All of the vehicles will be shipped overseas after being armored.

If the J&A is necessary then I would think a copy of it would go to the winning armorer to justify his sub-contract.

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Guest Vern Edwards

Although you called it an "armoring contract," you are going to award a contract for the purchase of armored vehicles, and you are specifying the make and model of the vehicle. You need a J&A for brand name or equal. See FAR 6.302-1[c](1)(ii). (I think calling the contract an "armoring" contract is misleading.) I don't think FAR says you have to provide a copy of the J&A to the prime to justify its use of a particular make and model that is specified in its contract, but I don't see any problem with doing so. By the way, you could avoid the brand name description by just specifying passenger capacity, right hand drive, and use of dirty deisel. If what you said about availability is true, then brand name specification and justification isn't necessary.

If I were an armoring contractor I might be concerned about being told to provide the vehicle, because I'd be afraid that the Government would try to hold make me responsible for the quality of the underlying vehicle, e.g., drive train, and not just for the armoring job. Will the armorer have to give you a warranty on the vehicle itself? Is the manufacturer's warranty transferable? If I were an armoring contractor, I'd prefer that you buy the vehicle and provide it to me as GFP. But if you've been buying them that way, then I guess it's acceptable to industry.

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Vern,

I see your point about our buying a brand name armored vehicle not making an "armoring contract". Seeing it in that light, we need the J&As. I was hung up on our IDIQ armoring contracts which I found out this morning have expired. So we are posting the two requirements as small business set asides. We know at least 3 of our previous IDIQ contractors will be making proposals. We have never had any major issues with the warranties but having a OEM warranty that will be honored when using dirty diesel was one of several reasons for limiting the competition. Thanks for getting my thinking straight.

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Guest Vern Edwards

Boof:

Given the information that you presented in Post #52. why do you need to specify brand-name? Why not brand-name or equal with passenger capacity, right hand drive, and operability using dirty diesel as salient characteristics?

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Sorry for the delay in responding, we are very busy. Thanks for the advice and yes we could use brand name or equal but since we already have the J&As approved we will avoid having to evaluate any "equal" proposals that the program office already knows won't meet thier requirements. We probably would not get any but why chance it since we already have the J&As.

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Sorry for the delay in responding, we are very busy. Thanks for the advice and yes we could use brand name or equal but since we already have the J&As approved we will avoid having to evaluate any "equal" proposals that the program office already knows won't meet thier requirements. We probably would not get any but why chance it since we already have the J&As.

Boof - Not to be rude here, but I've met many a program office who "know" no one else can do it. They are continually proved wrong. With regards to vehicles, I would make a guess that many people could do it, but you are most likely not buying enough for them to justify altering their production line to make it work. That is a different argument than "only one person can do it" but you don't know until you ask either. Without knowing the type of vehicle either (SUV size or military size), if you were buying enough you may interest the larger defense vehicle companies. You don't know until you ask the question.

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