Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, uses a C-5M Super Galaxy emergency escape slide at Travis Air Force Base, California
When the Defense Department relies on Only One Surviving company to provide a Critical Safety Item for 100’s of aircraft, that can spell disaster. This week while reviewing some open solicitations for Escape Slides used on the C-130 Aircraft we decided to do some investigation.
In many cases with Government contracts there are multiple suppliers for a single item, however only one approved manufacturer. For this specific NSN 4240-01-075-6640 which is an inflatable escape slide used on the C-130 aircraft there are two open solicitations coming from two different DLA buying activities equating to orders totaling 50 each with an estimated contract value over $500,000.
After reviewing past sales (procurement history) of this NSN we looked over 50 contract awards going back 17 years, Only One Surviving Manufacture for this item. It was sold to the DoD from a few companies like Syracuse International Technologies, All-Safe Inc., and Atlantic Diving Supply all who are Non-Manufacturers.
Only One Company manufacturing a Critical Safety Item (CSI) for the U.S Airforce
Is this a problem?
What happens if that manufacturer shuts down?
In addition, the Sole Source manufacturer of this NSN is Air Cruisers Company a Foreign Owned corporation. They were sold a few times, first to Zodiac then to Safran, now known as Safran Aerosystems Evacuation.
What happens if they sell again to adversarial country and decide not to sell to the US?
With this solicitation as well as many others the Defense Department welcomes new potential manufacturers to produce the items, with a statement like this: “The offeror must provide a complete data package including data for the approved and alternate part for evaluation” In many cases the current buy doesn’t go to the new manufacturer due to the time to evaluate, this is your time to prepare for the next buy.
The simple task of reviewing past procurement history, looking at who sells the item (are they a manufacturer or not) can potentially help increase your government sales.
This is only one example of 1000’s of items with only one source “SOLE SOURCE”.
For this specific case if you’re a company that has the ability to make a rubber inflatable slide maybe you can have a new source of income Selling to DOD.
The two Defense Logistics Agencies buying these items are:
DLA Troop Support Construction and Equipment – Strategic Materiel Sourcing Group Corporate Contracts
DLA Troop Support Construction and Equipment – Construction and Barriers (Class IV)
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