Some Basic Questions About Body Scanner Procurement
 

I haven't had the chance to dig through various publication (GAO, DHS, or press), nor have I had the time to do a historical search on FedBizzOpps to understand the procurement history of the Strip Search Machines. So, I thought I would throw out some questions that perhaps some other of you have thought about and researched.

1. Why are there two completely different types of machines? Clearly, there was one set of specifications. But, they went with two different manufactures, two completely different designs using two completely different technologies.

2. Did they down-select from more than two different types of technologies? Are there other types of scanners that could have satisfied their requirements?

3. Why didn't they down-select to just one type of machine? Two machines require two sets of operations and maintenance manuals and spare parts. There are two types of training programs required. There are two completely different sets of installation and test documentation and two completely different sets of interface control documents and two completely different sets of facility requirements.

4. Did they go with two types because of warp-speed plans to install them as quickly as possible? Was it the case that one manufacturer could not produce them fast enough for the TSA? If this was the case, why not down-select to one type and do a second-source procurement to increase your production rate?

5. How do they decide which airports get which machines? One clearly has a smaller footprint than the other. Perhaps one has a higher floor-loading than the other. Perhaps one draws more power than the other? Perhaps a particular airport director may not want radiation-generating equipment at his airport (if he/she even got a vote).

All of these questions set aside, for the moment, my personal loathing of this equipment at many different levels and the public speculation of Chertoff personally profiting from the acquisition of the Cancer Machine version.

However, this does make for an interesting look from an acquisition strategy perspective. I've got my own theories, but I will wait to read what others have written.

First of all, I wasn't previously aware that the funding for the majority of the scanners that are currently deployed came from the 2009 stimulus. I assumed it was some normal allocation of TSA's budget, but I'm even further disgusted to know that money that was intended to get America moving was spent to smack us down.

The only thing I've found so far that's relevant to this is that the Recovery Act specified that the TSA "shall prioritize the award of these funds to accelerate the installations at locations with completed design plans."

Bureaucratic incompetence is the short answer.

Yes, the stimulus money was supposed to help the American people. Some of the stimulus money was spent on the body scanners. No offense, but the economy isn't exactly doing that well. Remind me again how purchasing these body scanners have helped the US economy?!!!!!

Two sets of lobbyists? Two powerful senators with factories in their state?

I had forgotten that most of the scanners were bought with stimulus funds. For our projects, the Administration required weekly reporting on a public web site documenting how the money was being spent, where it was being spent, and how many jobs this was creating (and where they were being created). The TSA would have had the same reporting requirements. I'll see if I can find the web site if it is still up. Fortunately, with the stimulus funds gone, the TSA now has to buy and deploy these things with regular appropriated funds. The benefit to us is that procurement and deployment has slowed down considerably.

But, the pork $ just paid for copies. All of the original design and acquisition strategy was done before the economy went in the tank -- I want to say as early as 2005-2006. That will be harder to track down.

Found It...
 

Recovery.gov

Here are some interesting pages:

Rapiscan non-competitive contracts using stimulus funds

I couldn't find anything for L-3. Perhaps that's why there are far less of them out there?

This is not unique to AIT. TSA employees different types of ETD, x-ray, baggage EDS, and so on. There are multiple reasons for this, but to put plainly, it is the policy of the federal government.

This has been policy for years, and I am sure there are exceptions allowed. However, as quoted from a March 4, 2009, "Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, Subject: Government Contracting", Obama said:

"Excessive reliance by executive agencies on sole-source contracts ... creates a risk that taxpayer funds will be spent on contracts that are wasteful, inefficient, subject to misuse, or otherwise not well designed to serve the needs of the Federal Government or the interests of the American taxpayer. "

Government agencies are encouraged to contract out to different companies. As to whether or not such a policy is actually effective is another story.

Squeezing it down to one sentence:

The use of multiple contractors permits more competitive bidding and, theoretically, lower cost.

Yep. In theory, as you state.

FYI, I am a certified acquisition professional, as the federal government defines it. That's not what I was asking, but thank you for quoting Acquisition 1.01. The other equipment you describe were procured, most likely, under an IDIQ-type contract, in which there were many sources. A lot of them may have been procured off the GSA schedule.

The scanners were procured under a design & development contract before production contracts were issued. There are significant non-recurring engineering and life-cycle cost considerations that don't exist when buying stuff off the GSA schedule. Since the Recovery.gov data clearly shows that the x-ray scanners were bought under sole-source contracts, I'm having a hard time reconciling how anyone could have written a JOFOC that made it through legal approval (Francine) when there was a proven competitor who met all requirements (L-3). FYI, as far as I could tell, there were no L-3 machines bought using stimulus funds.

It works well in private industry. In government, maybe not so much.

Well thank goodness for that! Otherwise the money might have been wasted on something that doesn't benefit the public. :rolleyes:

^

I knew that it came from stimulus, and asked my representatives in Congress multiple times about the stimulus-spending angle last year, and not one responded to that part of the question.

How much decaying infrastructure could we have repaired with those tens of millions of dollars, providing jobs for low-income manual laborers who are otherwise completely screwed? It is disgusting on so many levels.

Now ratchet it up a few magnitudes. The Recovery Act provided TSA with one billion dollars for explosive detection equipment.

That takes it from disgusting to vomitous.