Part of an ongoing series of articles discussing techniques defense contractors can use to grow their business. While looking at a solicitation for navigational lights on the UH-60 helicopter we found a significant increase in pricing over a short period. The price increase was after the BLS inflation rate was decreasing. Many times when you find price hikes such as this, more opportunities can be found by researching a specific company or part.
GMS International is a broker, the OEM is Luminescent Systems Incorporated; a subsidiary of Astronics Corporation (NASDAQ: ATRO). This NSN references that Sikorsky drawings are available from DLA. Grimes CAGE 72914, now Honeywell Aerospace was a previous manufacturer of this item.
When a company is selling an item for what is likely a large profit margin it makes us wonder what other items they are selling. This Navigation light (AKA Position Light) is used on a number of Sikorsky Helicopter variants. Searching the part number and refining by the OEM CAGE we get a list of similar items.
We can see four different items, all used on the Sikorsky helicopter. Here we notice two items appear to be competitively priced, while two have significant price increases. So in addition to the top one which has a current solicitation, the second item is also regularly purchased and has seen a rapid rise in price.
| 6220-01-253-0380 | Part: 7847-4 | GMS international |
| Price | Quantity | Award Date |
| $990 | 70 | 7/2017 |
| $1,131 | 80 | 5/2020 |
| $2,049 | 67 | 6/2024 |
| 6220-01-190-3149 | Part: 7847-3 | GMS international |
| Price | Quantity | Award Date |
| $727 | 10 | 1/2018 |
| $1,475 | 10 | 10/2023 |
| $3,165 | 7 | 1/2026 |
| 6220-01-096-1049 | Part: 7847-1 | Aeropanel Corp |
| Price | Quantity | Award Date |
| $617 | 122 | 5/2015 |
| $417 | 248 | 10/2020 |
| $389 | 211 | 8/2024 |
| 6220-01-123-0209 | Part: 7847-5 | GMS international |
| Price | Quantity | Award Date |
| $652 | 45 | 3/2017 |
| $720 | 20 | 4/2020 |
| $792 | 26 | 3/2025 |
Using the tactic of stripping off the end of the part number is an easy way to investigate similar items to look for opportunities you might be missing.
If you are a company that manufactures navigational lighting you might be interested in bidding the current solicitation for 6220-01-253-0380. The total quantity is 120 units. Based on recent pricing the contract is worth $245,880.
To learn more, log into BidLink and put SPE8E7-26-T-1249 into Search for Anything at the top.
Tired of DIBBS / SAM and bid services that don’t understand defense contracting? Try BidLink for free at www.bidlink.net.
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