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“Recommendations on improving
small business contracting competitiveness at AFSPC and SMC”
The mission of the AFSPC Small Business Contracting Working
Group is to compile recommendations from industry on methods for AFSPC and
SMC to increase contracting competitiveness for small businesses in their
acquisition programs and better benefit from the innovation, agility and
efficiency which the Secretary of the Air Force recognized that small
businesses can bring to the Air Force and DoD
mission 1.
In response to a growing shortfall in Air Force small-business
contracts, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne issued a memorandum in March
2008 charging all MAJCOM Commanders, Program Executive Officers with goals to
increase their small business contracting percentages 1. In
this memo AFSPC was goaled to issue 15.02% of its contracts to small
businesses. As reported by the Air Force Small Business office 2,
only 9.41% of AFSPC contracts were let to small businesses in FY08, which
resulted in a $0.5B short-fall from the goals established by Sec Wynne.
NDIA and twelve other leading trade associations and community
development organizations sent a letter to Sec Wynne, responding to his
memorandum, outlining various recommendations for improving small-business
contracting with the Air Force in partnership with industry 3. These
recommendations included the creation of advisory committees for the three
commands not meeting the 23 percent goal, Air Force Space Command, Air Force
Materiel Command and Air Mobility Command and pointed out that since these
commands, taken together, represent the bulk of Air Force procurements, the
Air Force was unlikely ever to meet their statutory small business
contracting goals unless these commands were to set aside more contracts for
small businesses. To date, these recommendations have not been
implemented.
Following a meeting of the NDIA Rocky Mountain Chapter Small
Business Subcommittee with Ed Kurtz, the SBA Procurement Center
Representative at AFSPC, we received the following invitation to prepare a
briefing package with industry input on recommendations on how AFSPC could
increase their small business contracting percentages. We have also
received an invitation to present this same briefing to Maj Gen Basla the AFSPC/CV.
Email from Ed Kurtz, PCR Office of Govt Contracting,
US Small
Business Administration
“As you know, AF Space
Command and SMC have been tasked by the Air Force to increase their Small
Business Contracting percentages from 9.41% in FY08 to 15.58% in FY09 and
17.48% by FY13. This significant increase will require new thinking on how
small businesses can support space acquisition programs in a prime contract
role. I would be pleased if the NDIA Rocky Mountain Chapter Small Business
Committee and the California Space Authority could provide a briefing package
with recommendations from their small business members that could assist me,
and my counterpart Leonard Manzaneres in our role
as Procurement Center Representatives, in engaging in discussions with AFSPC
and SMC on how the current acquisition policy can be adjusted to improve
small business contracting competitiveness. I will look forward to receiving
these inputs”
Working Group Objectives
The working group will:
- Solicit input from industry on areas where
small businesses are qualified to support AFSPC and small business
set-asides can be expanded
- Identify issues, concerns, and barriers to
Small Business participation at both the Prime and Subcontractor levels
- Research methods used by other services and
agencies to increase small business competitiveness within their
programs
- Identify contracting methods that could be
used to allow small businesses to participate as contractors within
major systems acquisitions
- Identify “de-bundling”
strategies that improve Small Business participation at both the Prime
and Subcontract level while improving mission performance
- Solicit inputs from small businesses
developing products for use in commercial or military space programs on
how changes in acquisition methods could open up competition or reduce
costs for major systems acquisitions
- Solicit inputs from small businesses on
opportunities to better leverage their innovation and agility in
maturing technologies for insertion into future generations (increments)
of a product
- Prepare a briefing for SBA and AFSPC
leadership with compiled findings and recommendations from the working
group efforts
Chair: Dr.
Alison Brown, President and CEO, NAVSYS Corporation
Methods Panel:
Karen Saltsman, VP Business Development, NAVSYS
Corporation
Services
Panel: Gordon Bate, VP Business Development, Infinity
Systems
Products
Panel: Frank Backes, CEO, Braxton Technologies, LLC
Technology Panel: Dr.
Alison Brown, CEO, NAVSYS Corporation
Contact Juanita Dailey
at (719) 481-4877 x124 juanitad@navsys.com
to be added to the Working Group’s distribution list
www.ndiarmcsbc.org/afspcwg
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Contact Juanitad@Navsys.com
if you have questions/comments
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