NASA, George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Procurement Office, Code GP12, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, 35812, Attn: Space Flight Operations Restructure

18 -- SPACE FLIGHT OPERATIONS CONTRACT SOL RFP 8-SSP-SEB DUE 091495 POC Contact Mr. Walker Lee Evey/GP12, (205) 961-2031 AMENDMENT -- This notice clarifies the synopsis previously published in CBD on August 30, 1995 -- The following clarifications are provided in response to questions related to information provided at the August 21, 1995, Space Shuttle Restructuring Industry Briefing -- References are to the briefing material provided at the meeting: -- 1. Page 21, second items states: ''Design knowledge and expertise for major hardware elements must be maintained - A single contractor must have full responsibility for each major hardware element (e.g., engineering, production, processing, integration)'' -- The ''single contractor'' refers to those flight element contractors responsible for the initial ''design, knowledge, and expertise'' which NASA judges should be maintained through the proposed restructuring -- This includes as a minimum: Thiokol (RSRM), Lockheed Martin Marietta Systems (ET), Rocketdyne (SSME), and Rockwell (Orbiter) -- In the restructured program, NASA expects these element contractors to have full accountability for their major hardware elements in contrast to today's program in which accountability is shared by multiple contractors -- As a minimum, these contractors would: a) provide engineering for all work specific to their hardware, b) have responsibility for approval and assurance for all processes and procedures related to their hardware -- It is expected that some work conducted at KSC could be provided by ''pools'' of qualified technicians and that some other functions (e.g., quality, shared logistics, ground support, and generic functional engineering) could be also provided from common sources -- The intent of our requirement is to initiate a process of streamlining accountability and responsibility across the program -- At present, we have shared responsibility between functional contractors for hardware which results in several undesirable and inefficient practices: e.g., (a) maintaining excessive numbers of engineers and overlapping responsibilities between organizations, (b) element contractors maintaining ''oversight'' engineering groups at KSC to reiew processing contractor engineering, and (c) multiple configuration control systems for the same hardware and rewriting ''paper'' as hardware is transferred between responsible functional organizations -- Similar overlap exists between government organizations, and these will also be eliminated -- 2. Pages 23 and 24 provide guidelines for contract consolidation -- The primary intent of these guidelines is to indicate the range of criteria and potential dispositions of those current contracts which would not be subject to recompetition in the proposed single prime contractor selection process -- Some contracts not meeting these criteria and with appropriate periods of performance or contract options will be competed -- At this time, we expect the recompetition to involve approximately 30 percent of the total contractor direct workforce -- Considering the potential significance of these clarifications, NASA will allow an extension of the requested response time to 14 September 1995 -- Industry comments on these clarifications are welcomed. (0249)

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