Current legislation from Section 829 of the fiscal 2017 defense bill requires military contracting officers to reach for a fixed-price contract first. The attempt to overturn the initiative has been especially advanced by the Aerospace Industries Association, which in a memo to the Senate Armed Services Committee said, “Section 829 has added bureaucratic impediments to selecting a cost-type contract when appropriate. This has produced a chilling effect on the use of cost-type contracts even when doing so is in the best interest of the government.” Defense contractors warn of increased organizational risk with the provision, which could lead to stifling innovation. The late Senator John McCain advocated for the provision in an effort to control defense program costs. However, because of the approvals needed to use a cost contract, critics argue that it simply adds another layer of bureaucracy to select the type of contract that is needed. The annual defense bill has yet to be passed, and it’s unclear if the provisional overturn will remain.
Layoffs Impacting the Cleared Industry
| The Logistics Company |
The Logistics Company is a service-disabled, veteran-owned business located in Fayetteville, NC. It’s been reported that they’ve posted a WARN notice to the Virginia Employment Commission website about layoff plans for employees at Fort Lee and Fort Eustis. According to reports, 41 employees will be affected at Fort Eustis, and 119 employees will be impacted by the layoffs at Fort Lee. The DoD subcontractor provides maintenance, warehouse supply, training, information technology, and base operations support. |
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Hiring impacting the Cleared Industry
| Anduril Industries |
If you’ve ever wanted to work with drones, Anduril Industries would be the defense technology company to check out. Last week, Anduril was awarded a five-year Production Other Transaction (P-OT) Agreement by the DoD Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The agreement vehicle enables government customers, including existing Anduril partners like the United States Marine Corps, to purchase Anduril’s family of Counter Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) solutions at scale for force protection. Anduril’s C-UAS solutions use its Lattice artificial intelligence (AI) operating system and a network of sensors to autonomously detect, classify, and track targets, alerting operators to threats and allowing options for mitigation or engagement. Through multiple combat assessments and competitive test events, Anduril’s system demonstrated its effectiveness against a variety of UAS threats, ranging from hobby drones to those flown by state actors, and in a variety of scenarios, including against multiple UAS threats simultaneously. “This milestone for Anduril and DIU demonstrates that by running meritocratic test events and competitions that focus on capabilities, and rewarding the best systems, DOD can bring the country’s engineering resources to bear on critical national security issues,” said Anduril Co-Founder and CEO Brian Schimpf. “Given the near continuous evolution of this particular threat and the urgency to field solutions that can also be routinely modernized to address it, we worked closely with DIU over the last year and a half to transition from prototype to production and quickly scale proven and fieldable solutions.” |
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Cleared Employer at Work: CACI
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Opportunity to Watch
LMI recently acquired Suntiva, a digitally based business transformation company with primary focus in the public health and defense markets. Suntiva is headquartered in Falls Church, VA, near LMI’s Virginia-based headquarters.
Suntiva provides information technology, governance, organizational performance, human capital, and federal acquisition lifecycle knowledge, expanding LMI’s digital and workforce solution offerings and adding public health and defense offerings with customers like, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the U.S. Army.
LMI president and CEO Doug Wagoner stated, “This acquisition enhances our transformative solutions and expands expertise across a broader federal landscape to serve our clients better. LMI and Suntiva share a strong culture and mission focus, a commitment to sterling ethics, and a people-first mindset.”
LMI’s focus on rapid capability development and strategic independent research and development investments complements Suntiva’s emphasis on technology-enabled, differentiated solutions. Suntiva’s organizational development and digital enablement solutions—combined with LMI’s deep strengths in logistics, policy, science, analytics, and management advisory services—position the combined entity to accelerate transformative business solutions for the nation’s pressing public health needs.
In addition to LMI’s 60 years of partnership with the federal government, Suntiva adds a deep record of service to agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, Army Response Team, and DoD Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
“Our employees are passionate about their work and bring real-world experience to their clients’ missions,” said Dr. Hany Malik, president and CEO of Suntiva. “This acquisition enhances our ability to serve our nation through an expanded set of capabilities, combining our passionate and talented workforces to further the mission sets of our federal government clients.”
