June 3rd 2020 OSD A&S COVID Conference Call Notes

June 3rd OSD ACOVID Conference Call with Notes: OSD A&S: There are a few items in the newsâDepartment continues to partner with FEMA and HHS and to date provided $2.5B in support to COVID response by the USG> significant activity within acquisition community to continue this support. They have awarded Title 3 contracts such as last week to the space sector for solar cells and later today an award will be announced specific to ship building. They appreciate the response to the industrial PPE challenge and OSD noticed some similarities in responses such as most companies are on average within 2-3 weeks able to secure the PPE needed to fully open and remain open. Industry please keep OSD informed if this situation worsens; noted challenges with respect to plexi glass supply or lack of supply to create safe work spaces. On the issue of PPE standards and disparities within DoD community OSD stated they still need additional information and examples—keep that information coming in to OSD; DoD has not issued guidance with respect to installations testing contract support personnel—so DoD continues to rely on contractors getting the testing done thru their means for now until which time DoD does take this mission on. Continued concerns with the PPE loan process and getting access to the status of loan requests by company—OSD working to fix the transparency matter with Treasury. these calls will now be one day a week on Wednesdays beginning this week. OSD Small Business: The Wednesday meetings will now address small business matters in addition to the broader agenda as the standing Friday meetings which were exclusive to small business issues have been eliminated. Small business webinar series will continue but once every three weeks or so—note today’s event on telework at 1500—see business.defense.gov for details and future events. DPC: Working thru the Sec 3610 industry inputs and have conducted several half day sessions to work thru industry comments—progressing in their efforts. Publication end of this week will not happen and they will need another two weeks to work thru the comments and issues—thanks to industry for removing the restrictive language and doing so quickly; as for COVID testing costs, the allow ability of these costs will be determined by what guidance DoD issues—i.e. if DoD says you the contractor must conduct this test and continue testing until negative and so on, that would then be an allowable cost—to date DoD has not issued such guidance. Reasonable costs to protect the workforce like masks and gloves would be considered allowable as stated earlier. DCMA: Started tracking their DIB data in late March with a peak of over 400 DIB closures and impacts and now down to only 32; average days to reopen is 18 days. Commercial sector most impacted by closures especially the commercial aviation community; international closures--2 in India, 0 in Mexico, 1ea in Germany, UK and the Netherlands. 9 contract management offices closed due to US civil unrest with no impact to date on the DIB. 8 repeat closures due to furloughs, COVID 19 infections and reconfiguring equipment to meet CDC social distancing guidelines. DLA: FedMall small business corridor response has been significant; very busy answering questions not only about the basic program but also the new corridor. The testing of the new feature is ongoing and generally going well; working various training material and guides which they hope to publish by COB Friday. Working to identify the small businesses that will be allowed to purchase thru the FedMall program; and expect to go live 12 June. Small business offices: Army small business office—small business seminar held annually in conjunction with the annual AUSA Oct event—13-14 Oct it will be conducted, finalizing agenda, match making sessions added, as well as various seminar topics and will provide more information as the agenda unfolds, AUSA event is still planned as a traditional in person event vice virtual and will let us know if the event goes virtual. Navy small business office—have each of the major ten buying commands conducting webinars thru July to explain COVID and Navy mission needs to inform their small business community; Navy Gold Coast late August early September in San Diego and currently the event remains as a traditional in person event -- will let us know if this changes. Air Force small business office—number of awards for COVID slowing down a bit; Air Force Association event at Gaylord Hotel scheduled for the month of November where you will find a small business pavilion and like other Services this remains a planned in person event pending other guidance. CIO: In the last week or so several new products made available to include threat products for government and industries; go to public.cyber.mil/COVID19 to see all of this. Action: Cyber Security Maturity Model (CMMC )-- thoughts from Industry? Please collect thoughts on CMMC timeline/objective as OSD may schedule a dedicated call on this topic in the near future.

About the authors

Keith Webster

Keith Webster, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Defense and Aerospace Council, guides the focus of the council to strengthen the U.S. defense and aerospace industries by influencing domestic and international policy on behalf of its members.

Read more