June 17 OUSD A&S COVID Conference Call Notes

OSD A&S:

• Next Wednesday at 3pm there is a webinar on hosting a facility clearance. More information can be found at Business.defense.gov.
• A webinar on CMMC is currently being planned, more details to follow.

Industrial Policy:

• Last Thursday the department released force help protection guidelines, supplements 10 and 11. It will be provided in a package to be sent out this afternoon.
• There is no testing requirement for contractors coming back into facilities as they re-open. However, there will be temperature checks and Industrial PPE checks, but actual testing will not be required of contractors entering the facility.
• Working with the Hill on the budgetary process so putting out info at this time would be problematic.

DLA:

• As of today, there are 4 vendor catalogs loaded into FedMall in the small business corridor and 20 pending in various stages of review and contract. Products include masks, hand sanitizers, gloves, and etc.
• Focus: small business buyers; none are registered yet. Small businesses interested in purchasing from FedMall, let us know so we can get you registered. Participation is limited to DOD small business contractors.
• The Platform is completely enabled, they just need the buyers registered into the system.
• After careful review, DLA found that Industry associations themselves cannot participate in this corridor by law. DLA services DOD activity only.

JATF:

• Currently updating their portal to align with the stockpile strategy and industrial base expansion.
• Product lines and categories are associated with the industrial base stock pile.

OSD Small Business:

• Airforce: No comment.
• Navy: From a Navy Prime to Small Business input, they have $9.88 Billion that has been contracted to small business through the Navy as Primes. Regarding COVID-19 $163 million has been awarded and $148 million of that has been awarded to small businesses. On June 18th at 1:00PM, the Navy is hosting a webinar on Navy Supply Chain protection, which you can register for on the NavyOSDP off the small business programs website.
• Army: No comment.

DCMA:

• Since May 20, Progress Payments have come down to $500 million.
• All other payments have not been affected by COVID-19 activity.
• Number of total closures is down to 2 (For comparison, in mid-April it was 140)
• Total reopens: 267
• Average time for closure is now 40.5 days, Time to reopen: 20 days.
• International Closures: At it’s peak, there were 30 closures in Mexico and 70 in India. Today there are 0 in Mexico and 0 India. The only international closure is in the U.K. 14 Total companies impacted by strikes and layoffs, specifically commercial airspace.

DPC:

• Increased amount of cash-flow resulting from deviation in progress payment rate 2.2 billion; this has entered the DIB cashflow. This is tracking to what they originally estimated.
• Payment frequency: averaging across DOD in the 11-13 days total time span, as expected from previous discussions on this call. The only one not averaging under 15 days is DLA, who is averaging 17 days (this includes contracts with a 30-day pay period).
• Costs related to other than 3610: they are resolving final areas of comment and disagreement. They will get this guidance out by the end of the week but July 10 is the hard-stop deadline stated by Hon. Lord at a press hearing last week.
• 3610: they are using Industry’s comments for a three-pronged approach:
• Primes have done a great job of identifying stressors in their supply chains and working to advance money to those distressed small business companies.

Associations/Chamber:

• There is an Airforce Sustainment Center & Dept of Commerce survey floating around that is asking for a lot of data, which is somewhat burdensome. One association asked DOD to help provide an extension; DOD will look into it.
• DPA Title 3 Office: Standing FOA open where companies can and have been submitting white papers.
• There is a rumor of a legislative proposal in the works to reimburse programs for actual business losses, is there any information on this? OSD had no information on it, but offered to look into it.
• There is ongoing concern that DLA received a reduction in obligation authority resulting in a change in go forward contracts that would be reduced to 30-day contracts, which is unideal during a pandemic when trying to sustain the industrial base. Trade associations’ members are concerned, can DLA shed light on this? DLA confirmed that senior DLA officials are concerns and working on this issue daily with the Comp Troller, but it is entirely separate from the standing up of the small business corridor.

About the authors

Keith Webster

Keith Webster, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Defense and Aerospace Council, guides the focus of the council to strengthen the U.S. defense and aerospace industries by influencing domestic and international policy on behalf of its members.

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