Officials planned to detail them at AUSA’s annual conference in Washington this week. Gabe Camarillo, the undersecretary of the Army, gave a preview of the initiatives and the thinking behind them in an exclusive interview with Federal News Network.
The new initiative, called Project Vista, is one of several ideas the Army plans to test over the next few years to help the small companies it has already invested in overcome the infamous “valley of death.”
As for Project Vista specifically, the basic idea is that the Army needs better ways to ensure that the specific technologies it has helped fund through its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are actually incorporated into fully developed weapon systems.
“We felt that the Army needed to do something additional to bridge this valley of death, because often we’ve only talked about it in the context of contracting directly with small businesses,” he said. “But that neglects the fact that a lot of the opportunities that are available to small businesses are to partner with integrators who can take the innovation and technology that our small businesses provide and bring it together into a capability that can be used by our Soldiers.
Vista will start as a relatively small pilot program, most likely with some of the Army’s weapon systems that have a lower dollar value – ACAT 3 and ACAT 4, as it is called in DoD procurement parlance. The idea, however, is that competitors whose bids include the small business partnerships the Army is seeking will receive a higher technical rating in the source selection process.
Camarillo said no changes to legislation or DoD procurement regulations are required to implement the program: Procurement officials need only make clear up front that they will assign higher technical ratings to bidders whose proposals include certain technologies that have already attracted government interest under the SIBR, STTR and other outreach programs.