The U.S. Navy is working to attract more small businesses and improve the agility of its small business innovation research program, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.
James Geurts, assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition, said at an event in National Harbor, Md. that the service made changes to its requirements and is looking to reduce the timeline for contract awards. He noted that the Navy is also working on identifying needs for an SBIR initiative, as well as rapidly transitioning a successful SBIR effort into the fielding phase.
“Success to me looks like we are as efficient as we can be in generating ideas and evaluating ideas,†said Geurts. “It looks like getting our iteration speed up and our iteration costs down. I think we fail when we have cost imposing steps in the process that don’t add value.â€
According to Geurts, the Navy has surpassed its 14 percent goal of small business partnerships this year and awarded approximately $16 billion to firms under that category to date.
