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February 26, 2021 By cs

Future uncertain for industrial base as pandemic spreads

While the United States continues to deal with challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is still too early to know how the health of the defense industry will fare in the long run, according to analysts.

“The magnitude of the virus … it’s really unknown, a lot of this just has to do with when the virus is going to go away, … how quickly [a vaccine] can be deployed,” Nick Jones, the National Defense Industrial Association’s director of regulatory policy, said in an interview.  “COVID-19 is going to continue to be an issue until the virus is at very low levels, which may be who knows how long,” he added.

Jones’ comments echo sentiments expressed by Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment.  During a virtual Defense News conference in September, Lord said many of the effects of COVID-19 may be yet to come.

“All the reports that have come out in large part don’t reflect the hits that were taken by business,” she said. “There have been mixed reports in terms of revenue and profitability. I would contend that most of the effects of COVID haven’t yet been seen, because most companies gave their employees time off — they stretched out production, paid a lot of people for working 100 percent when, perhaps, they were only getting 50 percent of the hours in, and so forth.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/2/3/future-uncertain-for-industrial-base-as-pandemic-spreads

The National Defense Industrial Association’s second annual Vital Signs report on the health of the U.S. defense industrial base was released on Feb. 2, 2021.  To download a copy, please click HERE.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: commercial products, COVID, COVID-19, DoD, domestic products, industrial base, NDIA, pandemic, productivity

February 18, 2021 By cs

DoD’s JAIC rolling out new contracts to speed up AI acquisition

The Defense Department has made no secret about its ambitions to employ commercial advances in artificial intelligence in military systems.

But adapting the government acquisition process to those technological developments is no small matter.

Three new contract vehicles the department is in the process of deploying should make things a whole lot easier — at least that’s the hope.

For starters, last month, the department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center reached an agreement that’s intended to create a rapid procurement process for AI. Defense officials are hopeful that the project, called Tradewind, will help the JAIC meet one of its core missions: Finding use cases for AI throughout the military and getting the right algorithms in the right places.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/artificial-intelligence/2021/02/dods-jaic-rolling-out-new-contracts-to-speed-up-ai-acquisition/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: AI, artificial intelligence, commercial products, DoD, JAIC, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, OTA, other transaction authority

December 11, 2020 By cs

Proposed rule will revise the FAR definition of ‘commercial item’

The FAR Council has issued a Proposed Rule implementing amendments to the current FAR definition of “commercial item.”

The Proposed Rule will eliminate the current FAR definition of “commercial item” and replace it with separate definitions for “commercial products” and “commercial services.  The proposed definitions are designed to benefit both contractors and the acquisition workforce by simplifying the application of the “commercial” concept and providing greater clarity on the scope of each term.

Comments on the Proposed Rule must be submitted no later than December 14, 2020.

As a matter of background, the Proposed Rule implements both Section 836 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 and a recommendation from the Section 809 Panel.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/government-contracts-procurement-ppp/1000792/clarity-sweet-clarityproposed-rule-will-revise-the-far-definition-of-commercial-item

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: commercial contract, commercial item, commercial products, definitions, FAR, NDAA, proposed rule, Section 809 Panel

September 10, 2020 By cs

CMMC auditors about to wrap up training

Highly anticipated audits related to the Pentagon’s new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification process are inching closer, with auditors assigned to evaluate companies expected to complete their training by the end of September, according to the official spearheading the initiative.

Industry has been waiting with bated breath for the audits as part of CMMC implementation, which is meant to protect defense industrial base networks and controlled unclassified information from cyberattacks. Contractors will be required to meet different levels of security — Level 1 being the lightest and Level 5 the most stringent — depending on the type of work they are performing. The new rules will require contractors to be certified by third-party auditors to ensure that companies are adhering to certain standards.

Katie Arrington, chief information security officer in the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and the Defense Department’s point person on CMMC, said training for the first batch of auditors began Aug. 31.

“We’ll be starting to get some provisional assessors out into the marketplace very soon,” she said Sept. 2 during the Department of the Navy Gold Coast Small Business Procurement Event. The webinar was hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association. “Within a couple of weeks, we should have some capability out in the environment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/9/2/cmmc-auditors-about-to-wrap-up-training

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: auditors, C3PAO, CMMC, CMMC AB, CMMC accreditation, CMMC Accreditation Body, commercial item, commercial products, Congress, controlled unclassified information, COTS, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. DoD, NDIA

August 14, 2020 By cs

Changes to the CMMC Advisory Board as Congress turns up scrutiny of cyber standards

Less than two months after the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) advisory board became official, there’s already changes afoot.

Two original members of the advisory board have recently left.  John Weiler, CEO of the IT Acquisition Advisory Committee (IT-ACC), and Jim Goepel, the CEO and general counsel for Fathom Cyber LLC, are no longer listed on the main board of directors section.

Goepel left for personal reasons, while Weiler decided to work with the CMMC AB in a new way.

The change comes as the Senate and House armed services committee members turn up the heat on the CMMC by adding nine  provisions — six from the Senate — in the fiscal 2021 Defense authorization bill.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/08/changes-to-the-cmmc-advisory-board-as-congress-turns-up-scrutiny-of-cyber-standards/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: C3PAO, CMMC, CMMC AB, CMMC accreditation, CMMC Accreditation Body, commercial item, commercial products, Congress, controlled unclassified information, COTS, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. DoD

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