The US Navy has awarded a contract to Alion Science and Technology to provide acquisition management support to the Program Executive Office for Ships, Acquisition Management (PEO Ships AM) Directorate.

Under the $71.8m contract, the company will provide programme management, business and financial planning, acquisition and configuration management, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation support to the Directorate.

In addition, Alion will help PEO Ships AM acquire and manage government-furnished equipment and government-furnished information for several ship classes, including the DDG 51, DDG-1000, cruiser and destroyer modernisation and littoral combat ship sea frame, among others.

Alion Acquisition Programs Management senior vice president Kevin Lees said the company understands that the DDG 113 and Aegis cruiser and destroyer modernisation efforts will be a major thrust for PEO Ships and PEO Ships AM, and will significantly impact their already tremendous workload.

Work on the five-year contract will run until 16 December 2014, carried out by an Alion-led team, including TASC, the Columbia Group, Delta Resources and Triumph Enterprises.