I still work on the fringes of the business I worked directly for: mapmaking, surveying, and the like. The usual routine there was that the project went to the lowest bidder -- who, as a rule, couldn't finish it, because he'd made overoptimistic estimates of how quickly and/or well he could do the job. That was the _high_ end of the results; at the low end were the deliberate fishers for cost overruns.

I used to say that if I were ever so unfortunate as to find myself running a firm in that business, I would discharge with prejudice any employee who responded to a government Request for Bid with anything other than a copy of a form letter. The form letter would offer to do it over, correctly, for time & materials.

Boeing and the airplane companies are a special case. In the aviation industry we've got this concept called "counterfeit parts". To be fair, it arose because some fairly shabby people were selling junk -- but the result was a truly stupid law: the part has to have the manufacturer's part number, or be in the manufacturer's catalogue as a standard part. The result of that is that the quality doesn't matter. If I, not a manufacturer, produce a bolt (e.g.) of significantly better quality than standard, I can go to jail, and so can any airplane mechanic who installs one. If the airplane manufacturer goes down to the hardware store, picks up a standard, Grade 0 bolt made of Polish butter, and puts it in a plastic bag with the part number, it's a "real" part and passes all inspections. Having put this crap over, the airplane manufacturers are just cashing in. Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along...

And if I were running a computer sales company, Government POs would go in the round file unread, let alone responded to. There ain't no way in Hell I could charge enough for the computer to pay for the paperwork, hounding, and general hassle a government purchase implies.