By awarding more money to small businesses and speeding up the timeframe in which they are awarded contracts, the Army hopes to remove barriers to the private sector in the acquisition process.
The service is creating a “catalyst program” for the Small Business Innovation Research program, which would be a pilot program under the Army secretary’s direction, service spokeswoman Karen Kurtz confirmed to Inside Defense. The program would award contracts as large as $15 million to $25 million.
“This new program will strengthen alignment of technology exploration and development with building the Army of 2030; synergize Army investments with private, venture capital and integrators; and drive down transition risk,” Kurtz wrote in an email.
Additionally, the Army is working to reduce the timeline for awarding contracts in the SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer programs from 12 to 18 months to less than 75 days from application submission to contract award, according to Kurtz.
The federal government’s SBIR and STTR programs award money to small businesses for research and development in about a dozen agencies, including the Defense Department. Last month, the House and Senate each voted to reauthorize the SBIR and STTR programs, extending their life until Sept. 30, 2025. Both programs had been set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2022.
SBIR’s Army awardees had previously received $110,000 during the “proof of concept” stage, known as Phase I, which took about a year. The prototype phase, or Phase II, occurred two years in and typically featured awards of up to $1.1 million.
Although no two Army SBIR programs have the same award timeline or amounts, a typical award amount in the first phase is currently about $250,000 and occurs after two to six months, according to Kurtz. Second phase awards are up to $1.85 million and occur after 12 to 18 months.
The acquisition strategy for all SBIR projects is determined by several Army officials, including program executive officers and program managers, among others.
In speeding up the timeframe for when contracts are awarded, the service hopes to make the process less protracted, and to understand “how a startup’s funding runway constrains its ability to navigate a long/drawn out award process,” according to Kurtz.
Army Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Young Bang said during an Oct. 20 forum hosted by the Professional Services Council that the service has been looking at ways to bridge the so-called “valley of death” -- the gap between research and product delivery that can be caused by lack of funding or excessive red tape. Bang said he has heard of a good deal of frustration from industry about the slow speed of awarding contracts and low dollar thresholds in the SBIR process. He said he’s optimistic about the prospect of the dollar amounts being raised.
“For the Army, in conjunction with that, [we] are looking at how do we accelerate the time to work, right? So, we hear a lot of times these Phase 1 SBIRs are great, but it takes so long even after it’s supposed to be awarded, to get those sorts of things. And we realize that a lot of these smaller companies rely on that,” Bang said.
Bang said he remembers that when he was an officer in the Army, it took about 15 years to field a system. But the process has largely become accelerated due to the relatively new middle tier acquisition approach, in which rapid prototyping and rapid fielding can occur within five years. He mentioned the MTA for the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program began in 2018, the contract was delivered in 2020 and is expected to be in soldiers’ hands by next year.
“The MTA has given us incredible flexibility,” he said.