Charleston Defense Contractors Association’s 52nd SBIOI

The Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA) held their 52nd Small Business and Industry Outreach Initiative Symposium (SBIOI) in Charleston, South Carolina on October 16, 2019. The event featured several speakers from NIWC Atlantic and highlighted FY19 agency trends, metrics, and achievements, as well as confirmed the overall contracting strategy remains in place. A couple of the NIWC Atlantic speakers included CAPT Wesley Sanders and contract’s Steve Harnig.

During the NIWC Atlantic Leadership Update session, CAPT Wesley Sanders highlighted FY19 small business agency metrics. The agency exceeded their goals for the fiscal year in the SB, SDB, and WOSB categories, obligating approximately $272M, $138M, and $87M, respectively. NIWC Atlantic fell short in two categories: HUBZone and SDVOSB. The FY19 HUBZone goal was 1.55% and outcome was 1.52%. The SDVOSB goal was 5.42% and outcome was 5.32%. Both category percentages only slightly missed the goal by less than one percentage each. Further metrics provided during the presentation can be seen in the below chart.

Another set of metrics for FY19 came during the Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP OT) Update. For FY19, NIWC Atlantic maintained the following OTA figures:

• 64 total prototypes offered
• 3 awards made
• 6 awards in progress
• 56 proposals were placed in the IWRP basket
• Awarded prototype ceiling of $35M
• Average dollar amount per award of $1.1M
• 157 Average number of days from inception to award

NIWC Atlantic’s Steve Harnig spoke about NIWC Atlantic contracting strategies, upcoming requirements, and provided further FY19 contracting statistics. NIWC Atlantic’s overall contracting strategy remains the same and the agency is continuing to find a good balance between internal and external contracting actions. Harnig stated this will also help the agency with their total workload. Contracting metrics for NIWC Atlantic comparing FY18 and FY19 are as follows:

	FY18	FY19	Change
PALT/EAD	82%	85%	3%
Need by Dates	53%	75%	42%
Actions Completed	5,202	5,106	-2%
Dollars Obligated ($M)	$1,609	$1,955	22%
Avg Dollars/Action ($K)	$309	$383	24%

NIWC Atlantic has a couple of awards remaining under the Seaport-e vehicle and are on track for award prior to the end of December 2019. Additional procurement slides will be published along with the rest of the presentations, which generally occurs within about a week of the event.

The next SBIOI date is TBD, but based on past events it will likely be held during the CDCA Defense Summit from December 11-12, 2019.