Photo By David Stoehr | Naval Undersea Warfare Division Newport Contracts Department staff Alex Sasso (standing from left), Dylan Griffis, Kevin Silva and Dr. Stephanie Smyth watch as Liam Walsh completes an exercise during a high velocity learning session held Feb. 4. In Fiscal Year 2020, the Contracts Department saw an increase in efficiency, obligated more dollars with fewer actions, and had a reduction in contract flow times and an increase in Division Newport’s vendor base. see less | View Image Page
NEWPORT, R.I. — Fiscal year 2020, which runs from October 2019 to September 2020, was a banner year for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport’s Contracts Department, despite challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In FY2020, the department had its highest dollar obligations ever, fueled by more efficient processing of actions to combine multiple actions into single modifications. This was a result of better acquisition planning and project management on the execution side. A diverse vendor base of 318 companies, of which 64 had obligations of $1 million or more, comprised the FY2020 obligations.
“Looking back at mid-March and moving to a paperless, less collaborative telework environment, I’m amazed by the consistent, quality production that occurred from April through September,” said Steve Lamb, head of the Contracts Department. “Through those six months the team made Herculean efforts to keep money flowing to industry during a time that industry needed that sign of health, as well as the support they always provide our customers in support of the NUWC mission. For the year, 65% of the obligations occurred between April and September.”
The Contracts Department is responsible for acquiring quality goods, services and technology in a timely and cost-effective manner while maintaining compliance and policy. Production Branch Heads Alison Wicks, Mary Ann Gardner, Alex Olarte, Juli Chytka and Katie Hourihan led a team of approximately 70 contract specialists in the effort.
“FY20 showcased the best of the Contracts Department during a time of uncertainty and change,” Lamb said. “It is a testament to business professionals on my team and their importance to the execution of the Division Newport mission.”
In FY2020, the group accomplished its mission as well as it ever has. Division Newport had $574.7 million in obligations related to traditional Division Newport work and $75.4 million in other transactional authorities (OTAs). OTAs are legally binding instruments that may be used to engage industry and academia for a broad range of research and prototyping activities and are not standard procurement contracts, grants or cooperative agreements.
Division Newport’s Contracts Department also supports Program Executive Office, Submarines (PEO SUB) directly, which accounted for an additional $175.8 million bringing total FY20 obligations to $825.93 million. This was an increase in $126.7 million from the previous fiscal year. All this was accomplished while decreasing the number of actions from 2,639 to 2,404 from FY19 to FY20. This represents a 36% increase in efficiency from the previous year.
Over the past couple fiscal years, the Contracts Department has worked with the requiring departments to establish multiple-award contracts (MACs). These contracts allow for a pre-vetted industrial base that allows Division Newport to move quicker during the evaluation stage. It also allows for efficiencies for the Contracts Department in the generation of requests for proposals. MACs include:
Unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) Family of Systems (FoS) hardware, services, systems and subsystems
Weapons FoS
Submarine multi-mission team trainer (SMMTT)
Payload integration engineering services
SUBSAFE hardware and services
Logistics support for open ocean special projects
Rapid prototyping for hardware and services
The ceiling of these contracts is more than $1 billion and include issuance of more than 95 orders. More than 40 vendors were involved, including a number of local companies such as SeaCorp, Rite Solutions, Raytheon, General Dynamics and others.
During this process, the team reduced flow times in technical evaluations and requirements generation.
The plan for FY21 is a continued focus on reducing flow times for all contractual actions, with an emphasis on post-award and simplified acquisitions, as they make up approximately 95% of the actions executed on an annual basis. The Contracts Department is working with the requiring departments to develop post-award execution plans for each contract, as well as looking at data available in the Acquisition Management System (AMS) to modify how the Contracts Department intakes and assigns simplified acquisitions.
Lastly, the Contracts Department is looking at opportunities to enhance communication between the contract specialists and those in the requiring departments that have the individual requirement.
“Simple things like picking up the phone and having a conversation to acknowledge receipt of a contractual action, have a brief discussion on the requirement, and confirm the need date will go a long way in both sides working together to meet the mission need,” Lamb said.
NUWC Division Newport is a shore command of the U.S. Navy within the Naval Sea Systems Command, which engineers, builds and supports America’s fleet of ships and combat systems. NUWC Newport provides research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support for submarines, autonomous underwater systems, undersea offensive and defensive weapons systems, and countermeasures associated with undersea warfare.
NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.
| Date Taken: | 11.24.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 11.24.2020 13:59 |
| Story ID: | 383696 |
| Location: | NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 144 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
