Federal agents raid NASA construction contractor

[DocM]

This explains a few things. They subbed for Vencore on SpaceX, ULA and a lot of other projects. Presumably other subs will need to be found.

 

The OIG noted safety issues, missed completion dates, cost overruns etc.

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-nasa-oig-agents-raid-sbd-construction-contractor-20160707-story.html

 

Quote

Federal agents raid NASA construction contractor

 

Federal agents raided the Titusville office of a NASA construction contractor on Thursday, according to Orlando Sentinel news partner Fox35.

Investigators with NASA's Office of Inspector General, the agency in charge of probing crimes against NASA, removed boxes of documents and computer towers from SDB Engineering and Constructors Inc., according to Fox35.

The company located on East Parrish Road has worked on several big projects at NASA's Kennedy Space Center including upgrades to the Vehicle Assembly Building and corrosion control work at Launch Complex 41 and Launch Complex 37, used for United Launch Alliance launches.

SDB Engineering and Constructors Inc. has contracts with the U.S. Air Force, SpaceX, ULA, and previously United Space Alliance, before the Space Coast company closed in 2014, according to the SDB Inc. website.

SDB Inc. is a subcontractor for multiple companies including engineering company Vencore, audited by NASA OIG in 2016.

Vencore has a $1.9 billion overall contract with NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The audit of Vencore was initiated because of concerns over NASA's ability to "to motivate contractor performance and improve acquisition outcomes," according to the 2016 report.

The Orlando Sentinel was unable to reach NASA OIG for comment on the ongoing investigation and calls to SDB Engineering and Constructors Inc. went unanswered.

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

23 minutes ago, DocM said:

This explains a few things. They subbed for Vencore on SpaceX, ULA and a lot of other projects. Presumably other subs will need to be found.

 

The OIG noted safety issues, missed completion dates, cost overruns etc.

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-nasa-oig-agents-raid-sbd-construction-contractor-20160707-story.html

 

"to motivate contractor performance and improve acquisition outcomes"

 

That seems to be very common with regards to contractor work for our government.  It sucks.  I saw it throughout my career.  It'll cost x amount of dollars for the equipment, y amount for the installation ... and then the contractors drag their feet....come up with some excuse or find a loophole in the contract...and add additional cost/time on top of the agreement.  You're left with having to pay the additional cost/delaying operations because of them and/or the contract.

[DocM]

Cost +++....

 

39A etc.

[Blue-Vision]

Ruh roh! Someone's been caught playing the MilGov Contractor Game ... whoopsie!

[FloatingFatMan]

Why are cost overruns permitted?  In the real world, once you have a written quote on something, that's the price you pay, end of story.  If their costs have gone up since quoting, that's THEIR problem, not yours!

 

[DocM]

Because that's how many govt procurements work; they get to cover increased post-contract "costs" - aka Cost Plus. How else do you explain $500 hammers and $1200 toilet seats? $36B rockets? $12B spacecraft w/only 4 seats?

 

 

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

3 minutes ago, DocM said:

Because that's how many govt procurements work; they get to cover increased post-contract "costs" - aka Cost Plus. How else do you explain $500 hammers and $1200 toilet seats? $36B rockets? $12B spacecraft w/only 4 seats?

 

 

Our government does not work the way it should. FFman is absolutely correct.

[FloatingFatMan]

1 hour ago, DocM said:

Because that's how many govt procurements work; they get to cover increased post-contract "costs" - aka Cost Plus. How else do you explain $500 hammers and $1200 toilet seats? $36B rockets? $12B spacecraft w/only 4 seats?

The whole corrupt lot of 'em need shoving out of the nearest airlock.  I swear, if it were left to the US gov, we'll never get to Mars...

 

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

4 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

The whole corrupt lot of 'em need shoving out of the nearest airlock.  I swear, if it were left to the US gov, we'll never get to Mars...

 

NASA never should have been outsourced. We did get to the moon..

[PGHammer]

On 7/24/2016 at 11:16 AM, jjkusaf said:

"to motivate contractor performance and improve acquisition outcomes"

 

That seems to be very common with regards to contractor work for our government.  It sucks.  I saw it throughout my career.  It'll cost x amount of dollars for the equipment, y amount for the installation ... and then the contractors drag their feet....come up with some excuse or find a loophole in the contract...and add additional cost/time on top of the agreement.  You're left with having to pay the additional cost/delaying operations because of them and/or the contract.

WFA in procurement (all procurement - it's not unique to military, space, or even national-government procurement) is an ongoing problem - it gets even worse when it links to elections - and it often does, even at the subcontractor level.  (How much are contributions in LOCAL elections connected to subcontractors - even in Florida?  It has indeed become an issue in local elections merely in the DC area - consider that both corruption cases involving different former Virginia governors involve contractors or subconctractors.)

[DocM]

Not space related, but even after half of Detroit's major officers were sent to federal prison (the mayor got 27 years) the new mayors office is already in trouble over blight demolition contracts - kickbacks etc. and costs rising 25% a year or more. FBI investigation, probably a Grand Jury investigation etc.

 

They never learn, and at the federal level it's baked in.

[PGHammer]

4 minutes ago, DocM said:

Not space related, but even after half of Detroit's major officers were sent to federal prison (the mayor got 27 years) the new mayors office is already in trouble over blight demolition contracts - kickbacks etc. and costs rising 25% a year or more. FBI investigation, probably a Grand Jury investigation etc.

 

They never learn, and at the federal level it's baked in.

Not news, DocM - it predates Watergate at the very least.  (The FBI gets involved because the national government is one of the sources for the funds via various trusts - especially the Transportation and Transit Trust Fund - which is covered by fuels taxes.)

[Blue-Vision]

Oh yeah ... and because of DOD Regulations for procurement, development, and manufacturing for Mil, Gov, Uni and Sci Projects (and anything important marked for Civ use) all designs, components and personnel must be sourced from within the U.S. and employ U.S. Companies -- and generally if that work has anything to do with Mil, Gov, or Sci Classification then it'll charge extra "Premiums" on top of costing more since we probably don't make some of those components here anymore; so they'll need to build the facilities necessary to build the subcomponents to build the components ... (thanks to President Bush in '89 & Clinton in '93).

 

Systemic, convoluted cycles of greed and mismanagement on top of more greed and mismanagement run by barely competent people whose only goal is to occupy their time with spending money that they really aren't accountable for ... yeah, it's a [poop]show. Welcome to the great monolithic industrial machine that builds nothing on-time or on-budget anymore, because it can't. Pretty much like Microsoft, now -- a big, convoluted mess that doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing; and even when it tries it still isn't doing a very good job of it nor in a timely fashion.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

26 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Oh yeah ... and because of DOD Regulations for procurement, development, and manufacturing for Mil, Gov, Uni and Sci Projects (and anything important marked for Civ use) all designs, components and personnel must be sourced from within the U.S. and employ U.S. Companies -- and generally if that work has anything to do with Mil, Gov, or Sci Classification then it'll charge extra "Premiums" on top of costing more since we probably don't make some of those components here anymore; so they'll need to build the facilities necessary to build the subcomponents to build the components ... (thanks to President Bush in '89 & Clinton in '93).

 

Systemic, convoluted cycles of greed and mismanagement on top of more greed and mismanagement run by barely competent people whose only goal is to occupy their time with spending money that they really aren't accountable for ... yeah, it's a [poop]show. Welcome to the great monolithic industrial machine that builds nothing on-time or on-budget anymore, because it can't. Pretty much like Microsoft, now -- a big, convoluted mess that doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing; and even when it tries it still isn't doing a very good job of it nor in a timely fashion.

hmmm....really?  Not doubting you ... but all of the systems we used were foreign.  For example we used a Belgium company (AGFA) for the Picture Archiving and Communications System (actually that is Air Force wide) ... and two of the radiology rooms were also AGFA with a Switzerland company being the third radiology room (SwissRay).   We had Toshiba for CT and Ultrasound.  In fact we couldn't upgrade to GE equipment because they hadn't been vetted through the appropriate IT security (the DIACAP monster if you're familiar) so they weren't authorized for purchase.

 

Of course...this was medical ... so it may be different than the "real" DoD and probably had some sort of waiver or whatever for the DoD regulation you mentioned.

 

[DocM]

There are quite a few UK, Swedish, German, Belgian, Israeli and other foreign systems used by DoD. 

[Blue-Vision]

Wow .. things have really changed, then. [EDIT] Please remember I've been out of the loop for a long time. 

Edited July 26, 2016 by Unobscured Vision

[Blue-Vision]

13 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

hmmm....really?  Not doubting you ... but all of the systems we used were foreign.  For example we used a Belgium company (AGFA) for the Picture Archiving and Communications System (actually that is Air Force wide) ... and two of the radiology rooms were also AGFA with a Switzerland company being the third radiology room (SwissRay).   We had Toshiba for CT and Ultrasound.  In fact we couldn't upgrade to GE equipment because they hadn't been vetted through the appropriate IT security (the DIACAP monster if you're familiar) so they weren't authorized for purchase.

 

Of course...this was medical ... so it may be different than the "real" DoD and probably had some sort of waiver or whatever for the DoD regulation you mentioned.

 

Right. That equipment fell under a certain GL Code, so it was fine.

[T3X4S]

"The first rule in government spending: Why build 1 when you can build 2 at twice the price."

-Contact

Seems to be appropriate for this thread.

[PGHammer]

13 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

hmmm....really?  Not doubting you ... but all of the systems we used were foreign.  For example we used a Belgium company (AGFA) for the Picture Archiving and Communications System (actually that is Air Force wide) ... and two of the radiology rooms were also AGFA with a Switzerland company being the third radiology room (SwissRay).   We had Toshiba for CT and Ultrasound.  In fact we couldn't upgrade to GE equipment because they hadn't been vetted through the appropriate IT security (the DIACAP monster if you're familiar) so they weren't authorized for purchase.

 

Of course...this was medical ... so it may be different than the "real" DoD and probably had some sort of waiver or whatever for the DoD regulation you mentioned.

 

jkusaf - there are also cases of Congressional "meddling" involving contracts for a specific agency (due to the contracting agency in question being in the district of a powerful Member of Congress - consider my own Fifth Congressional District (Maryland) and the military agencies in it (from Joint Forces Base Andrews to ONI (which is subject to DIACAP - which you just mentioned); not even DIACAP has roadblocked procurement WFA all that well)).  In short, I'm not saying that such WFA happens despite the waivers - instead, I am saying that the WFA happens due to the waivers.