Acquisition professionals from Army Contracting Command attended an opening ceremony for the Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility, a new modular metal parts facility in Mesquite, Texas, May 29.
This ceremony was the culmination of 1.5 years of rapid acquisition by ACC-Rock Island and sets the stage for ACC-New Jersey to issue a $39.4 million Undefinitized Contract Action (UCA) delivery order for the manufacturing, assembly, inspection, packaging, and delivery of 155mm Artillery M795 Projectile Metal Parts Assembly urgently needed to support Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict with Russia, and replenish Army stockpiles.
Anna Whitcomb, procuring contracting officer, said ACC-RI received the requirement to construct the facility, purchase the equipment, and an initial prove out of the production lines to verify that they produce technical data package-compliant rounds, in mid-November of 2022 with a deadline to award before Thanksgiving of that year.
“We basically awarded within two weeks, and shortly after, maybe a month or two later, Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition decided to buy a second line because everybody was interested in the capability and the universal nature of it, that it could be used to produce different types of rounds as well,” said Whitcomb. “And then maybe a month or two after that, they suggested buying a third line. So, we have three separate task order awards right now, one for each individual line.”
Jaclyn Senneff, branch chief, said the urgent need for these products and direction of the Secretary of the Army, necessitated a quick award.
“When Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act in FY23, that gave us different Ukraine flexibilities, allowing us to accelerate actions on our end to get approval to award this on a sole source basis, to get approval to enter into an undefinitized contract action, and to get approval to fund at a higher threshold than we normally would fund UCAs.”
Senneff said Whitcomb quickly mobilized her team to preposition documents to quickly turn things around, in as short a time as eight calendar days. The contracting team had one primary specialist, Noel Costello, who laid the groundwork for awarding the task order and organizing everything that came in and was going out of the government's hands. The other three specialists, Haley Olson, Steffanie Adams and Abby Robbins, assisted with filing, responding to customers and inquiries and supporting every facet of these efforts as necessary.
“It was definitely a great learning experience for them to be able to work on such a high visibility effort,” said Senneff.
While the UCA was awarded in November 2022, the equipment wasn’t on-hand, and the subcontractor teams weren’t ready to start building up the site until August of 2023.
“Ten months ago, the site was a flat concrete slab, but now there are full production buildings with gas lines, electric lines, and state of the art equipment,” said Whitcomb. “Many people have said for that to happen in just 10 months is crazy.”
Whitcomb said there were a few challenges associated with the effort; in two separate instances, the equipment was coming from Turkey, and when it arrived at the Houston port, U.S. Customs thoroughly inspected the crates and the shipping containers and on two different shipments, found various insects on the containers.
“They had to hold these shipments for several days to do an entire fumigation on everything and make sure that they cleaned it out properly, so that caused an increase in costs, because [the Army] had to pay for a third party to do that fumigation and inspection,” said Whitcomb.
However, Whitcomb said they were able absorb extra costs and schedule delays.
“The contractor and our government representative on site worked very closely to ensure that we had workarounds and could keep other things moving. It's a pretty major win that both of those shipments were held for extra inspection, but overall, we didn't see any schedule delays as a result.”
Whitcomb said another challenge was that overseas shipments are required to utilize U.S. flag vessels for shipments from Turkey to the US, but US flag vessels are few and far between, and didn’t meet the schedules that were needed for this expedited project, so the contracting team had to pursue waivers from the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command.
“This allowed the Army to use non-U.S. flag vessels which allowed the contractors to get shipments moved quicker and at a cheaper price to the US,” said Whitcomb.
Following the opening ceremony, the contractor is still preparing for the hot run, essentially a qualification test to determine if the line is actually producing as it should be.
“I’m still monitoring the contractor’s performance as they button up some last-minute equipment details and fine tune some things before the hot run, which is scheduled for mid-July,” said Whitcomb. “We'll also be closely reviewing the results of that hot run to ensure that they've successfully met the contract requirements.”
So far, the contracting behind this requirement has been mainly performed at ACC-Rock Island, with ACC-New Jersey becoming more involved once the effort got closer to realizing the capability of the lines.
“ACC-New Jersey became more involved in the process when we needed to start thinking about production requirements and how they’re going to contract for those production requirements,” said Whitcomb. “We all want a successful transition that overlaps what we're experiencing on the facilitization contract so that we can transition to the production side smoothly.”
Whitcomb also said they are in close coordination with ACC-New Jersey, specifically on cost details and indirect and direct rates, because the team is working on defining task orders and is deep into negotiations and the cost details.
“A lot of that is now going to be beneficial for the ACC-New Jersey side when they go to award their production contracts,” said Senneff.
Amy Sentner, contracting officer and branch chief at ACC-New Jersey, led her team in the Combat Ammunition Division to orchestrate the soon-to-be issued UCA for M795 Metal Parts Assembly with General Dynamics – Ordnance & Tactical Systems, Inc. (GD-OTS). Since the U.S. began supporting Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia, the government has provided significant quantities of 155mm artillery projectiles through presidential drawdown initiatives. At the rate of consumption currently being realized, the ability for GD-OTS to enter production at the additional facility in Mesquite will help this initiative greatly.
Senter stated, “"I look forward to embarking on this journey with GD-OTS to continue to conquer backlog challenges, turning them into opportunities for growth and success."
To be able to attend Mesquite’s opening ceremony was something both the ACC-Rock Island and ACC-New Jersey teams have been looking forward to for several months, and celebrates the collaboration between the contracting teams, contractor, local and state officials.
“The commitment to the mission is clearly showcased by the seamless collaboration across the Army Contracting Command enterprise,” said Thomas Dougherty, executive director, ACC-New Jersey. “That collaboration between the teams at ACC-Rock Island and ACC-New Jersey demonstrates the power of the Army Contracting Command. Every member of the team from these two centers really stepped up and worked tirelessly to make the expedited construction, opening and utilization of this new facility a reality. They all should be incredibly proud of both their individual efforts and what this accomplishment means to the United States Army.”
“At the end of all this, each line is going to produce 10,000 rounds per month, so a total of 30,000 rounds per month is coming out of just this facility, which is a third of the overall US requirement for these rounds,” said Whitcomb. “It’s such a huge player in the overall ammunition game right now and I was honored to be there in person and have my whole team there. I told a few of my teammates that this is a once in a career opportunity, if even that, to be in the same room as the Secretary of the Army.”
For more information on the Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility, please visit:
Army inaugurates Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility | Article | The United States Army
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