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