Vanguard Magazine

16 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019 www.vanguardcanada.com interview Q Ian Mack, a retired colleague of yours, has written that NSS should be studied to identify lessons to guide the federal government in pursuing future complex national endeavors, whether procurement-related or not. In hindsight, do you think this is justified from a con- tracting point of view? Do you see areas where PSPC was perhaps not as pre- pared as it should have been for NSS? I had the privilege of working closely with Ian for many years, and in my experience, he's usually right – which was sometimes annoying. But I think he's right on this too. An examination of NSS would pro- vide really useful lessons learned, both positive and negative, that could be ex- trapolated for application in many com- plex endeavors. I'm sure that there are lessons around engagement with stake- holders, joined-up decision making, use of independent third-party experts, estab- lishment and evergreening of budgets and schedules, development of staff, and many other areas. This sharing of lessons learned has already been happening. We've had a number of discussions to share these les- sons, internally and externally. Certainly, PSPC could have been better prepared at the beginning of the NSS. We went through a very long period without any significant shipbuilding procurements. You can't suddenly produce experienced and capable procurement officers; it takes years to develop them. We've been work- ing hard to address this issue. We brought in an external shipbuilding advisor, estab- lished a number of contracts to provide expert services, including for training and coaching. We still have lots to do, but I think we've come a long way. Q You have had a long career with contracting experience in various sectors. What would be the important messages you would offer to Canadian industry as they pursue government contracts? Do your homework and be prepared. You will be playing catch-up if the first time you learn of a requirement is when the Re- quest for Proposal (RFP) hits the street. Be very careful with assumptions. It's not necessarily a good thing, but every RFP is different. So, read it carefully and respond with the information it asks for, not just the information you want to provide. If some- thing is unclear, ask a question. Make sure you understand what ele- ments of the RFP are the live-or-die man- datory requirements. Make sure that you are particularly clear regarding why your bid meets each and every one of those mandatories. Q We have heard for years that the military procurement process is broken. Do you think we could learn from serious study of our allies' procurement meth- ods when delivering ships, for example? Absolutely. I always think it's helpful to examine how others have approached solving similar challenges. We looked at what our allies, particularly the UK, had done while the NSS was being developed. We maintain a dialogue on procurement with many of our allies through various forums. For example, twice a year, there is a meeting of what we call the Shipbuild- ing Quadrilateral between government representatives of Canada, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. We meet to discuss various topics of com- mon interest. Three of those four coun- tries are, or will be, building variants of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship, and Canada has recently joined the "users group." There's a great deal of interest in discuss- ing common issues, such as supply chain management. There are similar forums for engagement on other defence and com- mercial-related procurement issues, both bilaterally and in bigger groups. While the scale is often quite different, it's surprising how often we're all being challenged with quite similar problems. Q It is common knowledge that the bid evaluation process to select the industry design team for the Canadian Surface Combatant project was protract- ed, taking about two years to complete. We assume this was at considerable cost to the government and to the bidders. Is this common in shipbuilding? Are there lessons we might learn from this experi- ence that you could share with us? This process took a lot of time because we needed to get it right. You are quite correct when you say that this was an expensive process for everyone involved. The Cana- dian Surface Combatant project is the larg- est and most complex procurement ever undertaken by the federal government. I think it's reasonable to say that the costs incurred while running a solid, open and fair competition need to be viewed as an investment that will pay off over time. These ships will be the heart and soul of the Royal Canadian Navy, and they will likely be sailed into the 2070's. Given the magnitude and importance of this project, the technical complexity of the bids and the nature of the ships to be designed, every effort was made to ensure that this pro- curement was effectively executed. Bidders were provided with multiple opportunities to submit high quality compliant bids that provide good value for money and maxi- mize Canadian content. We simply could not afford a failed procurement. With respect to the evaluation process itself, I would like to highlight a couple of particularly important elements. We established a principle to ensure that the process only eliminated bids where the bidder has been unable to correct a seri- ous deficiency. We gave bidders multiple opportunities to correct mandatory re- quirement deficiencies in their bids. We're very glad we included these provisions in the process because all three of the bidders needed to make corrections. This experi- ence really highlighted the importance of engaging industry early on and through- out the procurement process. More generally, we were also very care- ful about ensuring that the process was open, fair and transparent. We engaged an independent company to act as a fairness monitor throughout the procurement process. The fairness monitors observed or monitored the entire evaluation pro- cess and produced a number of reports, all of which are posted on our website. The conclusion was that the process was con- ducted in a fair manner. The Canadian Surface Combatant project is the largest and most complex procurement ever undertaken by the federal government.

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