SBIR and the Phase III Challenge of Commercialization Report of a Symposium (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Panel IV: Best Practice for Agency Programs: Program Executive Offices and Program Offices
Panel IV: Best Practice for Agency Programs: Program Executive Offices and Program Offices
Pages 124-139
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From page 124... ...
First, the SBIR program is a highly competitive program under which the DoD and other federal agencies fund private sector entities to perform science and technology research on behalf of the federal government. Second, at least within DoD, the program has been successful in developing technologies in areas of military need.
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From page 125... ...
Special Operations Command, and the Directors of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to, inter alia, "issue guidance to your Component's acquisition program managers to include SBIR as part of ongoing program planning, and to give favorable consideration, in the acquisition planning process, for funding of successful SBIR technologies."
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From page 126... ...
Each year he adds information on the new awards including an approved plan by which every Phase II firm will seek to go on to a Phase III award. • Award Phase III Contracts.
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From page 127... ...
He noted that he could not place his activities on the highly complex DoD acquisition flow chart circulated at the meeting, describing his office as a "6.1 organization," which is the DoD's budget category for basic research. "Typically," he said, "we're feeding things before that chart begins." He said that the mission of the Army Research Office is to "seed scientific and far-reaching technological discoveries that enhance Army capabilities." This mission, he said, gave him a broad spectrum to investigate and enabled him to take some risks in the longer term.
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From page 128... ...
would typically transfer through SBIR programs in the direction of technology application (other services, program managers/program executive offices, Research Development Engineering Centers, other customers)
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From page 129... ...
Tracy Van Zuiden U.S. Air Force Major Van Zuiden said that he has worked with the SBIR program for barely a year, after considerable experience in maintenance and logistics, and that he enjoyed hearing the lessons of those with longer SBIR experience.
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From page 130... ...
He said that the important feature of these projects, which were used by the Integrated Product Teams, was that they have appropriate scope and relevance to move along a transition path to the final platform, the aircraft. Success from the Point of View of Integrated Product Teams He said he has thought about what makes SBIR projects successful from the points of view of the Integrated Product Teams, a small business, and the prime contractor.
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From page 131... ...
The small business has to help the prime contractors and subs do this; no one knows the product better than the small firm, and they need to explain it to the prime contractors and subs. He described a product that has been a success story, in several ways.
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From page 132... ...
Hughes introduced himself as the acting chief technologist at Goddard Space Flight Center and said he would talk about his perspective on the use of the SBIR program as "an investment tool in the R&D program." For FY04, the SBIR budget for the agency as a whole was roughly $110 million. At Goddard the SBIR budget was $14 million and the STTR budget was $3.5 million.
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From page 133... ...
It also managed about 36 orbiting "space assets," about a dozen of them managed from Goddard, including the Hubble Space Telescope. It is "our pride and joy," he said, "to develop these
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From page 134... ...
Goddard also managed development of a number of technologies for the Aura mission,38 including composite optics, a radiometer, and signal conversion chips. This was a good example of a NASA SBIR program, he said, because well before the start of the mission, Goddard listed the challenges it saw in these areas and was able to infuse some of the technologies as they matured by maintaining close coordination between the program management and the technology programs at Goddard.
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From page 135... ...
He said that some of the most successful SBIR elements had the very senior, technical, experienced reviewers and the COTRs providing oversight. Fifth, he emphasized the importance of looking for and helping the SBIR Principal Investigators develop a realistic work plan that could be accomplished within the stated period of time.
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From page 136... ...
Mr. Hughes said that what is working well in the SBIR program was the special procurement authority available at Phase III.
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From page 137... ...
In terms of the Valley of Death, he called for a better mechanism to help firms doing fundamental science plan how to scale up or build a prototype after the principle has been proved. Major Van Zuiden said he would like "to steal an idea from NAVAIR," which was a concept called "clustering" of SBIR awards.
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From page 138... ...
Major Van Zuiden said that for submarines, the technical people in the laboratories helped evaluate SBIR projects. He added that as some of the laboratory budgets decrease, with reductions in defense spending, they will probably use SBIR awards to augment their own research and development.
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From page 139... ...
They did use the SBIR money and had started to treat it like a program, but they had not had Phase III successes. He said that a common problem for them was that they could not interest the prime contractors in their projects.
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