Acquisition headlines (11/1 – 11/7/2020)

Submarine industrial base ready to grow — but only in Pentagon, Congress send the right signals. “… the supply base and the two shipyards struggled to get up to a two-a-year construction rate. COVID-19 has only increased the challenge.”

Why Army helicopters have Native American names. “The regulation has since been rescinded, but the tradition has carried on over the years.”

DoD’s Space Development Agency shows how fast the FAR can be. I guess it’s just using IDIQs for R&D, awarding them to several “Tranche 0” vendors and downselecting through the options phases, and then commitment to mission with small team. “We’re are driving toward creating a marketplace that supports that, not just single vendors – we very much want to avoid that – and create a market that can provide the capabilities we need in a commoditized way.”

How a small AI company found a way to scale its work for DOD. “Partnering with primes is often the quickest way into [the federal market].” It’s teaming with Textron “will couple the startup’s autonomy-enabling AI with Textron’s robotic vehicles, with the goal of protecting troops in battle.” Is a lot of this R&D privately funded? I’d suppose Textron can expense to gov’t contracts, but can Shield AI?

GAO: Navy needs to consider more factors to better understand ship maintenance delays. “… while the Navy in its report said it’s aiming to cut the number of maintenance delay days by 80 percent between FY 2019 and FY 2020 and altogether eradicate maintenance delay days by FY 2021, the service has not achieved the 80-percent benchmark.”

General Dynamics awarded $4.4 billion DoD enterprise cloud contract. “GDIT will replace legacy DoD IT office applications with an enterprise-wide standard cloud-based solution across all military services.”

Rewrite of acquisition regulations helps US build hypersonic arsenal more quickly. Interesting connection. “The 5000 rewrite, specifically the product support and sustainment functional policy, places more emphasis on designing and contracting for sustainment.”

Google Cloud’s Public Sector Summit, Dec. 8. “… a two-day global, digital event connecting government and academic communities across the globe with thought-provoking panels, keynotes, customer stories and more. “

JAIC, in partnership with DIU, Delivering AI-Enabled Cancer Diagnostics at the Point of Care.

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