With many defense industry analysts predicting that contract protests will be as common to military acquisition as contract awards themselves, the concern now is whether the protests indicate a deeper problem in Pentagon purchasing -- and what needs to be done about it.

For now, some analysts say, the Pentagon and contractors may need to include the protest timeframe as part of the overall contract schedule.

"We are now assuming that any contract award above $500 million will be protested by the losing bidder or bidders," said Michael Lewis, senior vice president at BB&T Capital Markets. "So, yes, we think over the near-term the DOD should incorporate the expected timing of working through contract protests into the anticipated contract schedules."

The analysts' concerns come in the wake of the recent protest by Raytheon against the contract award to the L-3/Alenia team for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) by the Army and Air Force. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is considering a second protest for the Air Force's combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter fleet replacement.

"The preponderance of protests is symptomatic of an acquisition system that's collapsing under its own weight," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "At the very least, the protests can be seen as a vote of no confidence in the system. Contractors used to be very restrained - they were inclined not to make protests. Now, they know any decision can be revisited, if not reversed or blocked," he said.

What the Defense Department needs to do, those analysts said, is make the best moves early on in the contracting process.

"It is critical for the service leadership, and the Source Selection Authority in particular, to be very clear on the specific evaluation factors of technical, schedule, cost, past performance, management, and proposal risk," said James McAleese of McAleese & Associates in McLean, Va. "This is critical because most SDD (System Development and Demonstration) down-select decisions are based upon the credible capabilities of the offerors, rather than a finished weapons platform."

It is fundamental that services will seek to accelerate final SDD down-selects, and subsequent production decisions, to ensure that the next administration does not severely delay, or possibly even cancel key programs altogether, McAleese said.

"This creates an obvious incentive to accelerate competitive down-selects. However, it is critical for the services to properly staff both the source selection process and continuing discussions with both OSD and Congress. This is necessary to avoid the strong appearance of either systemic weaknesses in the service's Source Selection process, or the perception of bias and undue influence by that service in favor of one particular contractor. Otherwise, as that service accelerates award decisions, two or more back-to-back protests could create the appearance of a defective Source Selection process for the remainder of entirely-unrelated program awards by that service."

In the meantime, analysts say, expect the protests to become more a part of doing business.

"Ultimately," BB&T's Lewis said, "the Department of Defense will have to send a directive to industry placing limitations on the numbers of protests levied by any one company over a certain time period, like a year."