Free Motion to Supplement the Administrative Record - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:07-cv-00322-JPW

Document 15-2

Filed 06/18/2007

Page 1 of 7

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL

CLAIMS

INPUT/OUTPUT TECHNOLOGY, Plaintiff, v. THE UNITED STATES Defendant.

INC.

CoFC No. 07-322 BID PROTEST (Judge Wiese)

DECLARATION I, Thad Drapala, hereby state as follows:

OF THAD DRAPALA

1. I am the president of Input/Output Technology, Inc. (lOT), a Small Business providing design and manufacturing services to the DoD since 1980. I received my

Engineering degree from the University of Illinois in 1974 and ever since had been working in the Defense industry as an Electronic Engineer, where I have done design work on major programs such as the U-2, A-I0, F-15, B-2 and the F-117 aircraft. Over these thirty years, lOT had similarly done work for major Defense contractors such as Lockheed-Martin, Northrop, Bendix, Hughes, General Dynamics, Textron, and as a

prime DoD contractor.

lOT's success is based on timely completion of over two-hundred This translates into thousands of deliverables

prime DoD contracts and subcontracts.

with ZERO Quality Deficiency Report ("QDRs") since inception. 2. Specifically, for the purposes of this procurement, I was involved in the assemblies as

fabrication of Tele-Communication

Pin-Plate Backplane wire-wrapped

early as in 1970, while at Methode Electronics in Chicago, IL.

This experience has

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allowed lOT to become a manufacturer applications.

of High Reliability Backplanes

for military

As a result, lOT was awarded many DoD contracts for like backplanes, and

as early as in 1992 lOT won the AN/TPQ-36/37 Pin Plate Assemblies (Note: the item referred herein as "backplane" has a unique part number ["PN"] and is part of the end item Pin Plate Assy, PN 1690533), from U.S. Army CECOM, Fort Monmouth, NJ, and Hughes, Ground Systems Division, Fullerton, CA (the original prime). lOT has been the only backplane supplier responsible for keeping the critical AN/TPQ-36/37 FireFinder

Radar system operational on all war efforts since 1992. In its contribution to the war effort "for the soldier", lOT has mobilized its company staff on many occasions to fill urgency requests as fast as in few days to keep the fielded systems running. 3. In order to impress upon the Court the criticality of the backplane in the one should know what requirements ("QA") personnel had imposed CECOM Engineering on candidate suppliers and their for the

AN/TPQ-36/37,

Quality Assurance AN/TPQ-36137.

First, even with the many contracts lOT had at that time with CECOM

for printed wiring board ("PWB") based circuit card assemblies, and its Mil-Q-9858 Quality System, lOT underwent an extensive pre-award site survey by CECOM

Engineering and QA personnel.

This included review of lOT's Standard Manufacturing

Procedures Manual (depicting assembly procedures, wire-wrapped connection standards, tools, testing and inspection criteria to MiI-Std-1130 (titled "Connection, [.:Iectrical,

Solderless Wrapped"), and its Quality Assurance Manual. manufacturing personnel,

lOT had to have experienced Even

and special equipment to fabricate these backplanes.

back in 1992, a "wire-wrapped"

Pin-Plate Assembly was considered a legacy product and The repertoire of automated

had only few qualified suppliers to the defense industry.

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IPROTECfED INFORMA nON TO IBEDISCLOSED ONLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTEcnvE ORDER

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equipment, fixtures, sample backplanes,

and lOT's in-depth expenence

was the key

factor in receiving the award. Second, lOT had to perform extensive First Article Testing on three backplanes and Pin-Plates. This included mechanical, environmental and

electrical testing to insure the design parameters were met by lOT's fabrication and testing process, before any production deliveries to Government depots could commence. 4. lOT successfully completed the First Article Testing Program satisfying

Hughes Dwg. 780369 for the Backplane Assembly PN 1643137, and in accordance with Mil-Std-1130 for the hundreds of individual solderless wire wrapped connections on enditem Pin Plate Assy PN 1690533 (NSN 5998-01-366-6543). lOT's First Article testing

was witnessed by local DCMA Quality Assurance Representative and the resulting First Article Test Report was subsequently approved by CECOM Engineering authorizing lOT to ship Pin-Plates to the Government. 5. Later, buying responsibility for the Pin Plate was transferred to DSC-

Richmond, then Tobyhanna Army Depot, and finally DSC-Columbus.

More then once

the Government awarded contracts for AN/TPQ-36/37 Pin Plates only to discover after many months that the contractor would not be able to perform and ended up cancelling the contract(s). Regrettably, DSCC's ability to evaluate a contractor's capability After

appeared to rely on how many open contracts the "low bidder" had with DSCC.

some ten months later with two cancelled contracts and an Agency protest by lOT, DSCC came back to lOT by placing a small "Urgency" order while embarking on developing Alternate Offers. 6. After revIewmg the Government Affidavits and declarations with their

supporting documents, I was not able to find a single instance where Frequency Selective

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Networks ("FSN") or Aschbacher and Associates, Inc. ("AAI") proclaimed to have ever manufactured a Pin Plate assembly, or a Backplane, or has even addressed the fabrication of Pin plates or Backplanes. 7. Specifically, the correspondence and brochures supplied by AAI and FSN in of Filters, Discriminators and Resistor The Quality

TAB A clearly show FSN as a manufacturer

Assemblies, which has no relevancy to fabricating Pin plates or Backplanes.

Assurance Manual (Tab C) submitted by FSN was issued in 1979 with the last revision dated April 29, 1993. In its Introduction (Tab C p3 of73) the Quality Manager drives the point of the importance of their QA manual in the "ever changing filter technology" with no mention whatsoever of backplanes or even circuit card assemblies which FSN is In TAB F-

shipping to the Government circa 1999 per information in TAB J, K and L.

1of 2, FSN states they are in "possession or have access to all documentation required to manufacture the circuit card assembly" and are submitting the OEM's drawing under Category 2 (Similar item). There are several problems with FSN's assertion. question any correspondence One must

that: (1) has no date; (2) has a subject different then what

the Alternate Offer is being Approved under (namely Category 1- Same item); and (3) its text is addressing a different product, namely a circuit card assembly, not a Pin Plate assembly. In TAB K, a "Category 2" Item is in the subject and wherein FSN equates a

circuit card to a backplane (and not the end item a Pin plate) by stating these "are about equal in difficulty since they both use a number of active and passive components and number of components covered by the specification drawing". This is _fa_Is~, the

backplane contains no active and only one passive components. "Raytheon drawing" to a "Bendix drawing".

FSN further equates the

Since FSN did not provide a specific

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PROTECTIEJ!) INFORMA nON TO BE mSCJLOSEJ!) ONJLY IN ACCORJ!)ANCE WITH U.S. COURT OF FEJ!)ERAJL CJLAIMS PROTEcnVE ORJ!)ER

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Bendix drawing number, I will take the liberty of assuming they were from TAB L, which lists ten "Bendix" circuit card assemblies, of which none are designated as a Pin Plate or a Backplane assembly. In summary FSN's data package has no relevancy to the

manufacture of Pin Plates or backplanes. 8. It is my opinion that the declaration submitted by Mr. Truskowski is lacking in technical merit by his limited understanding of what is a Pin Plate assembly, and its Radar system. By his item to

importance to the successful operation of the AN/TPQ-36/37 statement (in par. 4) that "The backplane manufacture" and equating a supplier's

assembly is not a complicated

capability of manufacturing

circuit cards to

fabricating electro-mechanical engineering background.

assemblies is even more absurd in view of his mechanical I question Mr. Truskowski's expertise and

Accordingly,

position within the AN/TPQ-36/37

Program Office.

I would be very surprised if such

analysis would ever originate from the AN/TPQ-36/37 Program Office, their Engineering Branch, Tobyhanna Depot, or even the present OEM (Raytheon). 9. Specifically, in par. 4 of Mr. Truskowski's declaration, he states the subject

item is made up of few components ("a circuit card, one capacitor, several connectors, wire, terminal lugs, shrink tubing and miscellaneous hardware"). For reference, lOT has

built many different circuit card assemblies and Pin Plates for the AN/TPQ-36/37, and to this date we consider the Pin plate as the most involved and difficult to built because of the various fabrication processes and testing. I wonder if Mr. Truskowski opinion would change if he only knew there were over one-thousand-seven-hundred-nineteen individual pieces/parts which make up one Dwg. 1690533 Pin Plate assembly. (1,719)

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10. Re: par. 5 of Mr. Truskowski's

declaration, after evaluating the information

submitted by FSN in par. a-g, he declares "The offeror's proposal was complete and demonstrated technical knowledge of the item ... " How absurd, there is no discussion of any kind by FSN on the subject of Pin Plates. Not even FSN claims to have ever build a Pin Plate or backplane, and from their QA manual (driven to the manufacture of Filters according to their own QA manager) one could see Filters are their specialty.

Nevertheless Mr. Truskowski over simplifies the manufacture of Pin Plates and construes that FSN is capable of building Pin plates. He also goes on to say, FSN "had

manufactured similar items with similar manufacturing processes and quality verification procedures, Exhibit B Tab L". I fail to see any connection with the testing of circuit card

assemblies in FSN's data package to the processes listed in Hughes Dwg. 780369 and Mil-Std-1130 for the hundreds of solderless wire-wrapped connections on the end item Pin Plate. 11. Re: par. 9 of Mr. Truskowski's declaration, finally Mr. Truskowski granted _Se_eenkins J

FSN approval via Form 339 (Exhibit A) under Category 1 (Same item).

Declaration, Exhibit A at A24-2. Clearly, a Category I--Same item, approval is based on an Item previously DSCC's Request" provided/shipped to Original Equipment Manufacturer Offer/Source guideline (OEM). Approval document

own vendor information reflects this on

web page for "Alternate page 5 of the

(http://www.dscc.dla.mil/downloads/small

business/vendor

info. pdt).

Approval at this

level would require evidence such as inspection, shipping records, actual sample, and/or OEM acceptance correspondence, etc. No such records could be found in the data

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package

submitted

by FSN's
m

and AAI.

Accordingly,

I beHeve Mr. Tmskowski's

approVed under Category 1 -Same item, i.s improper and should be rescinded.

12. In my opinion the improper categorization

would

lead DSCe to think they

wiH be receiving the SAME HEM as previO\l:dy 3hipped to tbe OEM. After £II!, DSCC
did recognize the criticality par. of the end item. See Declaration of Mr. Renee l. Fredrick

4, in which it Mates 'This part requires engineering source approval by the design

control activity .in order to maintain the quality ofthc part", Further the Declarant sayeth not. In accordance with. 28 V.S.C. § 1746, I declare
under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America Executed on June 18, 2007. that the

foregoing is true w:udcorrect

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flROl'ECnm INFORMATiON

AiCCOI'UIJ\I'ICE WiTn V.S. COWTRTOJ.'

~'.:m;::MIL

TO IRIF: i'HSCtOSIED ONIL'V ~N

CLAIMS ,ROTIIC1'IV.:

ORnER