Archive for April, 2010
Gov. Perdue Announces Jobs NOW Small Business Assistance Package
Governor Perdue last week called on the General Assembly to pass a legislative package designed to assist small businesses in creating and maintaining jobs. The package includes tax incentives, grants and an expansion of the small business preference for companies seeking contracts with state government. Governor Perdue made the 
announcement as part of a three-stop JobsNOW tour of small businesses in Asheville, Lexington and Fayetteville. To read more, http://www.governor.state.nc.us/NewsItems/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?newsItemID=1029
Recent Federal Contracts Awarded to NC Firms
1. AECOM TECHNICAL SERVICES, INC., Raleigh, NC, Wake County, has won a contract worth a maximum of $30,000,000 from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command for a indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for utilities design and engineering services.
2. MACHINE SPECIALTIES, INC., Whitsett, NC, Guilford County, has won a contract worth $325,080 from the Department of the Air Force for Aircraft Components and Accessories.
3. SUBSEA VIDEO SYSTEMS INC., Elizabeth City, NC, Pasquotank County, has won a contract worth $231,461 from the Department of Homeland Security for Hoist & Cabin Camera’s.
4. CAROLINA COMMONWEALTH FOREST PRODUCTS, LLC, Henderson, NC, Macon County, has won a contract worth $399,999.04 from the National Guard Bureau for Timber Sale at Fort Pickett, Blackstone, VA.
5. TRIUMPH ACTUATION SYSTEMS, LLC, Clemmons, NC, Forsyth County, has won a contract worth $69,745.00 from the Defense Logistics Agency for ROTOR-POST, MOTOR, HYDRAULIC.
6. HOTEL LOGISTICS, High Point, NC, Guilford County, has won a contract worth $164,636.00 from the Military Sealift Command for USNS HUMPRHREYS CIVILIAN MARINER LODGING.
7. AILERON AVIATION INDUSTRIES, INC., Havelock, NC, Craven County, has won a contract worth $3,250 from the Air Force Materiel Command for Aircraft and Airframe Structural Components.
8. KIDDE TECHNOLOGIES INC., Wilson, NC, Wilson County, has won a contract worth $96,000 from the Naval Supply Systems Command for CYLINDER, FIRE EXTIN, IN REPAIR/MODIFICATION.
9. NEWGARD INDUSTRIES, INC., Monroe, NC, Union County, has won a contract worth $38,529.75 from the Defense Logistics Agency for SEAT, AIRCRAFT.
10. ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSULANTS, Clayton, NC, Johnson County, has won a contract worth $17,100.00 from the Department of Agriculture for *RECOVERY* Cultural Resources Survey on the Croatan NF North Carolina.
11. CAPE FEAR SITE WORKS, INC DBA ICAN, Fayetteville, NC, Cumberland County, has won a contract worth $32,881.51from the Department of the Air Force for RECOVERY – PROJECT NO. FA4488-10-R-0002 – Remove Obstructions from Runway 23 at Pope AFB, NC.
12. SEPI ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION, INC., Raleigh, NC, Wake County has won a contract worth $308,871.72 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for RECOVERY–C–PROJECT NUMBER 076240, WILMINGTON HARBOR 96 ACT (Construct Fish Passage at Lock & Dam #1)– Design and Prepare Plans & Specifications.
13. AB INTERCONNECT, INC., Smithfield, NC, Johnson County, has won a contract worth $38,125.00 from the Defense Logistics Agency for WIRE ROPE ASSEMBLY.
14. TRIUMPH ACTUATION SYSTEMS, LLC, Clemmons, NC, Forsyth County, has won a contract worth $26,230.00 from the Defense Logistics Agency for SLEEVE AND SLIDE, VALVE, LINEAR, DIRECTIONAL.
15. LGS INNOVATIONS LLC, McLeansville, NC, Guilford County, has won a contract worth $752,575.19 from the Department of the Army for ADP Telecommunications & Transmission Services.
Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise (EAGLE) Program
On APR 12, 2010, the Rock Island Contracting Center released a Special Notice regarding the Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise (EAGLE) Program. The purpose of this notice is to inform interested Contractors that an industry day will be held on MAY 17-18 2010 at the Radisson Quad City Plaza in Davenport, Iowa. The conference will begin on Monday, MAY 17 2010 at 11:00AM CT and will continue with break-out sessions on Tuesday, MAY 18 2010.
For more information go to: http://ncmbc.us/MCFO_LogisticsFutureOpportunities.php
Defense Contracting Methods Stifle Innovation
By Sandra I. Erwin
The Pentagon’s new industrial policy guidelines call for the Defense Department to tap the commercial sector and niche small businesses for new technologies.
“Although innovations unique to national security often occur within the ‘pure-play’ defense industrial base, the vast majority of innovative and revolutionary components, systems, and approaches that enable and sustain our technological advantage reside in the commercial marketplace, in small defense companies, or in America’s universities,” said the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.
The QDR calls for establishing “requirements and pursuing specific programs that take full advantage of the entire spectrum of the industrial base at our disposal: defense firms, purely commercial firms, and the increasingly important sector of those innovative and technologically advanced firms and institutions that fall somewhere in between.”
Those “in between” companies offer many of the niche products and services that the Pentagon needs to counter the enemy’s rapidly changing tactics and technologies. At an AFCEA industry conference in February, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright, USMC, lamented that current conflicts “have a duty cycle of about 30 days.” The Pentagon’s lethargic procurement cycle cannot keep up. “That’s part of the frustration that you’ll hear day in and day out both from myself and the Secretary of Defense [Robert Gates] as we try and move this department to a footing and a risk calculus that is commensurate with the war that we’re actually in, not the war we’d like to be in,” Cartwright said.
But it is not clear how the Pentagon plans to go about changing the status quo. Small businesses and commercial firms typically have been skeptical of the Pentagon’s rhetoric because the procurement system remains stacked against those “in between” firms cited in the QDR.
“The reality is that the procurement process cannot be changed so dramatically as expressed in the QDR … The utility and innovation of this unique sector of the defense industry must be better understood and incorporated in the short-term strategy,” said Muriel Jérôme O’Keeffe, president of JTG inc., a small woman-owned company based in Vienna, Va., that specializes in multilingual services and cultural analysis for intelligence and homeland security agencies.
There are potentially hundreds of firms fall in the “in between” category, but as a rule these companies are not able to score defense contracts unless they are subcontractors to the large primes, said O’Keeffe in a recent interview. “If you’re providing a niche service or product, it’s hard for small businesses to get contracts,” she said. “We depend on large companies for our survival.”
If the Defense Department is serious about recruiting agile small companies, it needs to change its business model so that it compensates contractors for performance, not for labor hours, O’Keeffe said. The government would get more bang for the buck if contracts were awarded for a specific product or service, to be delivered as soon as possible, as opposed to the government agreeing to pay for labor hours regardless of what is accomplished during those hours, she said.
But changing contracting methods so that the government pays for deliverables, instead of labor hours is not likely to happen overnight, she said. “It is going to be a big shift.” Government officials talk about their desire for better contractor performance but are not taking action to incentivize suppliers to produce faster. In areas such as information technology, companies sell labor hours, which is very different from selling a finished product, said O’Keeffe.
“At the moment, the procurement process doesn’t reward agility,” she added. “For certain high-tech products, the government should look at a different way of procuring the service.”
Another problem for small IT or analysis firms is that many of the niche services they offer have been bundled into larger intelligence or logistics contracts, so the Defense Department may not be able to draw on their talents unless it hires the prime contractor to do the work.
“After 9/11, anything dealing with cultural and language shifted into larger procurements and that expertise is now with large companies that provide larger services,” said O’Keeffe. That may not be the best deal for the government.
Information technology consultant Anand Datla offered similar observations in a recent article in National Defense. He said government contracts that pay for labor hours instead of performance are stifling innovation and hindering progress in areas such as cybersecurity. “The traditional acquisition economy is not giving the government the best value for taxpayer dollars,” he said.