Increasing the Department of the Navy’s Opportunities for Small Business and Non-Traditional Suppliers through Simplified Acquisitions Contracting and NAICS Targeting

Abstract

The Department of the Navy’s (DON’s) total acquisition workforce, including the 1105 Purchasing Agent series and the 1102 Contract Specialist series, is directed to maximize contract awards to small and nontraditional suppliers by the terms of the Small Business Act and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), as well as Presidential, Department of Defense (DOD), and DON initiatives such as Better Buying Power (BBP). This direction is particularly strong with regards to low-dollar awards. The Federal Acquisitions Regulation (FAR) Part 13 Simplified Acquisitions Procedures (SAP) was designed to be a highly effective tool that can overcome contracting barriers for non-traditional and small business suppliers. Through the Small Business Reservation (SBR), Congress directed agencies to automatically attempt small business set-asides of contract awards below the Simplified Acquisitions Threshold (SAT) of $150,000.00. The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 recently authorized discretionary set-asides on task and delivery orders under FAR Subparts 8.4 and 16.5. However, there are concerns that SAT contracts are often benefitting large firms across various North American Industrial Category System (NAICS) categories. The DOD’s preferred MAXPRAC model is unsuitable for solving this apparent problem. This Report examines barriers, tools, structure, and best practices of small business SAT contracting based on a test case study of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) SAT level contracting authority and a survey of relevant regional agencies. The Report develops three alternative NAICS Access Visualization (NAV) models with emphasis on targeting requirements and industries for award to small and non-traditional suppliers: NAVUSA (Understanding Subsector Availability), NAVBID (Barriers Intelligence Dashboards), and NAVBOSS (Business Opportunities Solutions Sequence). The Report recommends these models for further testing at NPS and their eventual adoption DON-wide.