Month: May 2024

The DoD Office of Industrial Base Resilience seeks public comment on actions it can take to enable the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) to continue to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for defense applications. Of special importance to small businesses is the feedback sought on question #4: “How can the DoD support the involvement of non-traditional defense contractors and small businesses in the design, development, testing, and deployment of AI technologies for defense applications?”

Feedback from the public will guide the DoD in developing policies, initiatives, and resource distribution to ensure support for the DIB in integrating AI into defense systems. Public comments will also be used to formulate a Trusted AI Defense Industrial Base Roadmap. Public comments will be accepted until July 22, 2024.

For more information, click here.

The Department of Defense provides billions of dollars through contract financing to acquire things like weapon systems and satellites. This financing can help contractors avoid expensive commercial loans and may help DOD reduce costs. In April 2023, DOD published a study on the effect of its contract financing policies on the defense industry.

Based on its April 2023 Contract Finance study, DOD proposed 16 actions it could take to help expand the defense industrial base. As of January 2024, DOD had taken steps toward implementing the majority of the proposed actions. Several of these proposed actions are intended to help subcontractors and small businesses, and include:

• Improving the ability of subcontractors to contact the contracting officer when they do not receive payments from prime contractors, and
• Modifying various regulations, as needed, to improve timely payments to subcontractors, including small businesses.

For more information, click here.