A Salute to the Small Businesses
“Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot recognizes the 2017 National Small Business Week; a time to celebrate the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners. NASA honors its 2016 Agency Small Business Advocate Award winners and acknowledges the contributions made by NASA civil servant personnel throughout the Agency. The Agency 2016 Small Industry Award winners are also highlighted and they recognize the outstanding Small Business Prime Contractor, Small Business Subcontractor, Large Business Prime Contractor, and Mentor-Protégé Agreement that support NASA in achieving its mission.”
Marc’s note: There’s always a steady stream of discussion concerning ULA, Boeing, SpaceX, Lockheed etc. on NASA Watch, in other words, the big companies, but innovation also comes from small businesses.
There’s an argument made by many that the multiplicity of so many small firms, each manufacturing a different grade of screw or fastener and all spread over so many states, chiefly accounts for the standing army of NASA managers, contributes greatly to the persistent delays.
Is this the case? Dunno.
OTOH, it’s hard to gauge the support how much NASA support there would be without this brazen payoff. I’d like to think it’s not necessary.
There are two countervailing forces always at odds. One amalgamates service contracts into single large blocks like the Shuttle support contractor, United Space Alliance, with the goal of saving money. The other, largely to satisfy the somewhat questionable belief of Congress that forcing the government to buy from small businesses, even if it increases costs to the taxpayer, will somehow stimulate growth, forces them to split every contract into numerous slices reserved for small business. It is not unusual for the size limit for bidders to be less than the number of employees needed to support the contract, making it impossible for the incumbent to even enter a proposal. This results in fragmented “teams” and “mentor-protege” arrangements that inevitably create duplicate management and overhead expenses.
Successful small businesses should win business competitively in the commercial market, where cost and productivity count more than million-dollar proposals and adherence to complex and obscure accounting requirements. Setasides just create a vast array of small businesses that are specialized to compete for more taxpayer dollars.
In aerospace, the SBA defines a small business as having less than 1,250 employees.
That’s pretty funny. I know a lot of ‘small business’ people who would look on 1200 employees as a gigantic concern.
I wonder how many of these small businesses actually have only one customer i.e. NASA, Boeing, LM. Back in the days that would be a division or branch within that customer office.