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Marine Corps’ Albany base sponsors small business trade show Aug. 4 & 5

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May 28, 2011 by

If you’re interested in learning about what and how the Marine Corps Logistics Command buys, then you ought to consider being at the Albany Civic Center on Aug. 4 and 5, 2011.

The Albany Marine Corps base is hosting a two-day trade show specifically focused on procurement and acquisition that support of Warfighter requirements.

The Command is looking for exhibitors and attendees specializing in:

  • Logistics
  • Industrial Electronics
  • Communications
  • Information Technology
  • Engineering
  • Parts Obsolescence
  • Repair/Maintenance
  • Storage
  • Warehousing (including Supplies)
  • Material Handling
  • Green Initiatives
  • Construction
  • Structure Ventilation/Controlled Environments for Workers

On Thursday, Aug. 4th, an anticipated 100 exhibitors — representing both small business and large business as well as local, state, and federal government agencies – are expected to be on hand at the Albany Civic Center.  Opening ceremonies will begin at 8:00 a.m.

Mid-day on Thursday, attendees will gather for lunch across the street from the Civic Center at the Albany Hilton Garden Inn to hear featured keynote speaker, Lieutenant General Frank A. Panter, Deputy Commandant, Installations and Logistics, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps.

Following lunch, activities will resume in the exhibit hall at the Civic Center from 1:30 until 4:00 p.m.

On Friday, Aug. 5th at the Albany Civic Center there will be eight (8) workshops running concurrently, each repeated on the hour at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00 a.m.   Workshop topics include: The Mission and Function of the Marine Corps Logistics Command Centers (including Distribution Management, Maintenance Center, and Supply Management); Expert Services for Entrepreneurs; Acquisition Courses for Contractors; the Federal Logistics Information System and the Internet Bid Board System; Construction Requirements of the Marine Corps Logistics Base; Small Business Program Updates; Getting on GSA Schedules; and Doing Business with the Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM).

There is a registration fee of $100 to attend this two-day event. The registration fee includes access to all events both days, including one lunch ticket for Aug. 4th.

Companies wishing to exhibit at the event must make arrangements and pay a fee in advance.  The exhibition fee for large businesses is $550, and the exhibition fee for small businesses is $450.  Each of these exhibitor registration packages covers two attendees and two lunch tickets.  (Exhibitors must set-up at the Civic Center on Wed., Aug. 3rd, between 12:30 and 4:30 p.m.  Exhibit teardown takes place on Thurs., Aug. 4th between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m.)

Pre-registration is required to attend this event.  The deadline for registration is Thursday, June 16, 2011. Complete details may be found at: http://www.logcom.usmc.mil/sbpo/files/trade-show/2011/Key-Information.pdf.

Two government & industry events coming up in Perry in Nov.

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October 6, 2010 by

The Governmental Purchasing Association of Georgia is holding its annual Georgia Vendor Exhibitor Fair on Novemeber 2 and 3, 2010 in Perry, Georgia.  Hundreds of representatives from government procurement offices will be on hand to shop for the newest and most important advances in equipment, products, and services.  This represents an opportunity to showcase your company, your products and your services.  Booth space and sponsorships are available.    

The Warner Robins Chamber of Commerce Aerospace Industry Committee (AIC) 8th Annual Requirements Symposium is being held November 16 – 18, 2010 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter in Perry, Georgia.  The Requirements Symposium is a unique 3-day event where senior leaders and managers at Robins Air Force Base share their current and future requirements and organizational vision of the future. This insight into requirements at Robins AFB and the Air Logistics Center allows aerospace industries and businesses to appropriately plan for capabilities to meet the needs at Robins AFB and the Warfighters they service, today and tomorrow.

You can find registration links to each of these events — and to many more upcoming events of interest to government contractors — at http://www.albanysmallbiz.org/2010/09/upcoming-vendor-conferences-valuable-if-you-do-your-homework.   This same link contains many tips to consider when preparing to attend vendor events.

Upcoming vendor conferences — valuable, if you do your homework

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October 5, 2010 by

In the next few weeks and months there are many government-sponsored conferences being held to attract small businesses to, and inform small businesses of, government agencies’ upcoming contracting opportunities.

Toward the end of this article, you’ll see a list of many government-related vendor conferences coming up, along with details on how to register.

But before jumping right into that list, the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) suggests you take a few preparatory steps.  After all, it’s important that you make a sound decision about whether it’s worth the time, effort, and expense to attend a particular vendor conference.

First of all, small businesses should make no mistake about it: government agencies may need you more than you need them.  Federal agencies are under the gun to ensure that small businesses — including 8(a) firms, companies in HUBZones, service disabled veteran owned small businesses, and others such as women-owned businesses at the subcontract level — get their share of the “contract spend.”  Keep in mind that the federal government is nearing the end of its fiscal year (Sept. 30th), so there is money to be spent before then, and small business goals to be met.  That’s why agencies host conferences — to demonstrate that they are reaching out to the small business community — and that may be why there are always so many government events scheduled toward the end of each year.

Does that mean that you should attend as many governmental vendor conferences as you can, and that by attending, contracts will begin to fall in your lap?   Hardly. 

From GTPAC’s perspective, government-sponsored vendor conferences run the gamut in value.  Some are well-organized, featuring details on specific, upcoming opportunities as well as access to the decision-makers.  Other conferences, however, can be disappointing, consisting of little more than “a dog and pony show.”

So how do you select a good conference to attend?   How do you reduce the risk that you’ll be attending a conference that has little value to you?

There are several things you should do before deciding to go to a government-sponsored vendor event.  Here is a checklist:

1. Research the conference sponsoring agency’ s forecasted contract opportunities.  Look for the sponsoring agency’s annual procurement forecast on that agency’s website.  Use www.google.com/unclesam and type in the name of the federal agency and “procurement forecast.”  (If that search fails to produce the results you need, check https://www.acquisition.gov/comp/procurement_forecasts/index.html.) One thing for sure, before you attend an event, you want to make sure the sponsoring agency buys what you sell.

2. Find out what contract opportunities will be the subject of the conference.  Even if an agency buys what you sell, you’ll want to make sure that will be the focus of the conference.  Look in the conference announcement — see if the agency identifies specific goods and services that will be the focus of the conference.  Are the NAICS codes for future contracts identified, and do they match-up with yours?

3. Determine whether you’ll get access to decision-makers.  Look for opportunities to meet one-on-one with the people who make the buying decisions.  Good vendor conferences will provide you with the opportunity to meet, on an appointment basis during the event, with agency contracting officials.  See if you can make appointments as a part of the registration process or whether such opportunities exist on-site at the event.  Think outside the box: If you arrive early — or stay late — will you be able to spend time with the people who award contracts?

4. Once you select a conference, prepare yourself.  Remember, only one-third of the “action” occurs at the event itself.  You should spend the first third of your time preparing to attend.  And another third should be spent in follow-up, after the event.  If you are not prepared to make this much of an investment of your time, maybe you shouldn’t attend.  To help you prepare, attend, and follow-up, we recommend you read our detailed article at:  http://www.albanysmallbiz.org/2010/05/14-tips-for-attending-a-government-expo-or-trade-show.  Your GTPAC Counselor will be glad to elaborate on this topic and provide you with additional advice.  You can find our contact information right here.

Now, what you have been waiting for:  The information about upcoming government vendor shows.  Here they are:

2011 Conferences

  • Public Health Preparedness Summit – February 22-25, 2011 – Atlanta, GA – Details at; http://www.phprep.org/2011.
  • National Recreation and Park Association Congress & Exposition – November 1 – 4, 2011 – Atlanta, GA – Details to be announced.

2010 Conferences (Upcoming)

2010 Conferences (Previously Held – Resources Posted)

 

  •  © 2010 Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center – All Rights Reserved.

White House boosts effort to keep fake products out of procurement

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October 3, 2010 by

The White House has created an interagency working group to stop counterfeit goods from entering the supply chains that support Defense Department weapons systems and private sector electronic goods, the nation’s first intellectual property czar said on Tuesday.

“The implications of DoD procuring counterfeit goods are negative and obvious,” said Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator at the Office of Management and Budget. “Our understanding is that this is a problem that a number of our agencies are struggling with.”

Espinel made her comments at an event hosted by the nonpartisan Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, before the start of a panel discussion on strengthening enforcement of IP rights in countries that systematically extort intellectual property. Congress created the IP coordinator position in 2008, to respond to concerns that government agencies responsible for protecting intellectual property were not coordinating.

This summer, the White House issued a joint strategic plan to combat IP theft that called for establishing a governmentwide working group to study how to reduce the risk of agencies procuring counterfeit parts. The framework stated the task force should include representatives from the National Security Council, Defense, NASA, General Services Administration, Commerce Department, Small Business Administration and Homeland Security Department.

A January 2010 Commerce survey found that nearly 40 percent of entities across the procurement supply chain discovered counterfeit electronics between 2005 and 2008. The semiconductor industry has aired concerns that counterfeit chips mislabeled as military-grade can lead to fatal malfunction in military and aerospace parts, according to the White House’s strategic plan.

On Tuesday, Espinel observed the IP problem is one issue where there is consensus in Congress. “I feel very lucky to be working in an area where there is great bipartisan support,” she said. Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sherrod Brown of Ohio in an Aug. 6 letter to Ashton B. Carter, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, expressed fear about the potential for counterfeit parts to delay military missions and seriously affect the integrity of weapons systems.

The senators’ letter referenced the Commerce study and a March Government Accountability Office report that found Defense did not have specific procedures for detecting and preventing counterfeit parts from infiltrating the supply chain.

China, the country most frequently identified as the source of counterfeit items, should be treated with “a carrot-and-stick approach,” Espinel said. “China is both an economically sensitive issue and a political sensitive issue.”


– by Aliya Sternstein - 09/28/10 – NextGov.com – © 2010  NATIONAL JOURNAL GROUP, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Pentagon official seeks support for contracting initiatives

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September 28, 2010 by

The Pentagon’s top acquisition executive told an Air Force audience Wednesday that implementing the set of sweeping acquisition reforms was essential because without them, the nation could not give the troops the capabilities they need as defense budgets get tighter.

And to the Air Force officers and industry representatives in the audience, Ashton Carter said those who hope the department will be unable to achieve the proposed reforms, “you have to consider the alternatives.”

Carter listed as potential consequences: broken or canceled programs, “uncertainty and turbulence in the budget, market uncertainty, difficulty for industry, erosion in the confidence of the taxpayer that they are getting value for their dollars … and foregone military capabilities.”

But on the positive side, Carter said part of the acquisition improvement effort was to “incentivize productivity and innovation in industry” and that “profit is a perfectly appropriate topic” for the defense acquisition executives.

The day after he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined the 23 changes to the contracting process at a Pentagon news briefing, Carter, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the Air Force Association conference at the National Harbor convention center that the challenge would be implementation.

The acquisition reforms had received a generally favorable review earlier in the day from Aerospace Industry Association President Marion Blakey, who told the AFA audience that many of the initiatives matched the industry’s recommendations.

And as Carter was speaking, the two leaders of the House Armed Services Committee’s acquisition reform panel issued a statement endorsing the new effort.

“We applaud Secretary Gates and Dr. Carter for tackling acquisition reform and for embracing many of the reforms identified in our panel’s report and in the House-passed IMPROVE Acquisition Act to meet this end,” said Reps. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., and Mike Conaway, R-Texas. They said the Pentagon initiatives made it even more important that the Senate pass the House-approved bill.

Carter told the AFA audience that an improved acquisition was necessary because the defense budget was expected to rise only slightly in real terms in future years.

With an end to the double-digit annual increases of the last nine years, he said, the Pentagon leaders concluded “we can’t support the troops with the capabilities they need unless we learn to deliver better value for the defense dollars and thereby achieve the programs we need with the dollars that the taxpayers can afford to give us.”

Carter expressed confidence they could achieve their objectives to save $100 billion over five years from “low value-added activities” so the funds could be shifted to the needs of the warfighters.

He said he was confident of success because they are “reasonable objectives, come at end of a decade of very rapid growth” and have the support of the president, the secretary and Congress.

Carter praised the Air Force secretary, chief of staff and acquisition executive for leading the way on procurement reform, citing their improvements in maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons system and the effort to build a long-range strike capability at an affordable price.

Addressing a program of high interest for the Air Force, Carter said he could not tell them when officials would announce a winner of the competition to build a new refueling tanker.

“It’s not a secret; it’s unknown. It will be done when it’s done. We’re working very hard to get it right,” he said, reflecting a decade of mistakes and scandal surrounding the program.

– by Otto Kreisher – Congress Daily – September 16, 2010

Devil is in the details regarding Defense spending guidance

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September 23, 2010 by

Defense Department plans to increase competition and cut overhead costs and red tape associated with procuring goods and services have mainly met with praise from industry leaders and lawmakers — the two constituencies most able to derail reform. But full support will depend on implementation details that Pentagon officials are still working out.

Reps. Rob Andrews, D-N.J., and Mike Conaway, R-Texas, longtime proponents of acquisition reform at the Pentagon, praised Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his top acquisition official Ashton B. Carter for issuing guidance earlier this week aimed at increasing productivity and efficiency in spending.

“We applaud Secretary Gates and Dr. Carter for tackling acquisition reform and for embracing many of the reforms identified in our panel’s report and in the House-passed IMPROVE Acquisition Act to meet this end,” they said in a joint statement, adding, “We must learn more about the department’s plans in the weeks ahead, but we look forward to working with DoD on these efforts.”

Likewise, Aerospace Industries President Marion Blakey welcomed the initiative and the department’s outreach to industry in developing the new objectives. “While we have questions regarding some of the proposals, we are confident that the cooperation between government and industry as these initiatives are developed and implemented will produce results that will benefit all stakeholders — most importantly, the warfighter and taxpayer.”

“I don’t think there’s much objection to the objective,” said Stan Soloway, president and chief executive of the Professional Services Council, an industry trade group. “The message has been they want to be collaborative. The message has been this is not about arbitrarily cutting; it’s about finding better ways to do business.”

Nonetheless, industry officials are concerned about some aspects of the reforms. “One area where I do have concern, not covered in [Carter's] memo, is you have the secretary’s directive to lop off 10 percent of at least some category of service contracting. That seems to run contrary to the strategic approach of the Carter guidance,” Soloway said.

Another issue of concern to service contractors is the question of competition. Carter noted that 28 percent of competitive awards for service contracts had only a single bidder and department officials believe they need to inject more competition into those procurements.

“I don’t disagree that they ought to be doing whatever they can to maximize the competition. That is clearly the right objective,” Soloway said. But it’s not unexpected that some percentage of contracts, especially for work that is being rebid, would not attract more than one bidder if the incumbent contractor is understood to be performing well.

“You’re not going to spend your bid and proposal dollars to compete for something where the chances of winning and unseating the incumbent are really extreme. But that pressure is nonetheless always on the incumbent because they know if they stumble there’s any number of predators ready to pounce,” Soloway said.

Contracting officials should make sure their requirements and performance work statements invite innovation, and thereby attract increased competition, he said. “The government talks about innovation, but it’s not at all clear at the end of the day if that’s what’s they’re rewarding,” he said.

Soloway worries budget pressure is driving many contract awards away from best value bidders to lowest-cost bidders.

“In a tight budget environment, the tendency is to squeeze every nickel you can out of something, but that doesn’t necessarily go along with looking for more innovation and better value,” he said.

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– By Katherine McIntire Peters – GovExec.com – September 16, 2010 – (C) 2010 BY NATIONAL JOURNAL GROUP, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

How a lawn mowing contract is changing Defense acquisition

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September 22, 2010 by

The Naval Sea Systems Command decided it didn’t make sense to create one set of contract specifications for lawn mowing services at a base on the East Coast and another set to cut the grass on the West coast, when in fact one contract would work for both places.

Now the leadership at the Defense Department wants to extend this simple concept departmentwide.

Defense spends $200 billion a year, half its annual budget, on services ranging from lawn mowing to software maintenance. Ashton B. Carter, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, wants to rein in that spending as part of an overall plan Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on Tuesday to cut $100 billion from the Pentagon budget during the next five years.

In a memo to Defense acquisition managers issued on Tuesday, Carter said an ever-expanding set of requirements and missions — “missions-requirements creep,” he called it — for services has contributed to an increase in spending during the past decade. “These requirements often require the same function or service to be provided, but are written uniquely so that competition is limited,” he said in his memo.

Carter directed acquisition managers to develop templates for performance work statements, or definitions for what a unit wants to buy that are included in every solicitation. He cited as an example NAVSEA’s SeaPort-e electronic marketplace, which was created to purchase a variety of services from 2,217 vendors — including lawn mowing services. The platform provides a standard way for a diverse group of large and small businesses to bid on solicitations.

Cindy Shaver, SeaPort-e program manager, said NAVSEA’s experience since the buying platform began in 2001 shows standard work statements enhance competition and save the Navy and vendors time and money.

Officials originally developed SeaPort-e to serve only NAVSEA, but it now manages acquisitions for all the systems’ commands, including the Marine Corps and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

SeaPort-e first issued the work statements for the acquisition of basic services needed to maintain bases — such as lawn mowing or maintenance — because these could be easily standardized. Potential bidders then could develop standard responses, which would cut bid and proposal costs. The contractors passed those savings on to the Navy, Shaver said.

In addition, the templates for similar services eliminated potential bidders’ concerns that a work statement was developed with a specific vendor in mind, she added.

NAVSEA plans to develop templates for program management support services. Although support for a ship-building program might seem quite different than the support required for a missile program, the services are the same, Shaver said. Preparation of a budget for a ship project is similar to the budget for a weapons program, and by looking for commonality rather than differences, the Navy can enhance competition and save money, she said.

Carter also directed acquisition managers to award more services contracts to small businesses because they provide Defense with “an important degree of agility and innovation,” with lower overhead costs. SeaPort-e has a high percentage of awards going to small businesses. So far in fiscal 2010, it has issued 4,692 task orders with a total potential value of $6.8 billion, with small businesses taking home 85 percent of the awards.

Shaver said increased competition has been the primary reason it has saved money. The Navy’s goal is to have 100 percent competition on every SeaPort-e task order, a goal that will be met more easily with standard work statements, she said.

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– By Bob Brewin - 09/16/10 – NextGov.com – © 2010 BY NATIONAL JOURNAL GROUP, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED