ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL -- Approximately 160 members of industry converged at Heritage Hall for an engagement event with government contracting personnel, Feb. 13.
Army Contracting Command-Rock Island and U.S. Army Sustainment Command hosted the day-long event, which featured a welcome address by Jay Carr, executive director, ACC-RI in which he discussed the center's recent reorganization from the nine-division center to the current structure of three buying directorates and three support directorates.
"We combined some of our activities to try to establish some efficiencies and effectiveness across the organization," said Carr. "As we really started to look at strategic sourcing, we made sure we were utilizing all of our resources in the most effective manner possible."
The main focus during the morning's session was briefings from the three directors of ACC-RI's buying directorates, who talked about the changes in ACC-RI organizational structure, upcoming requirements, and their thoughts on various aspects of procurement processes.
Employees from the Source Selection Support Center of Excellence team, which was created in 2017, provided an overview of their roles, responsibilities, and work done thus far as well as a discussion of ACC-RI's standardization of our industry debriefing process.
There was also a presentation by James Coffman, deputy to the executive director, Acquisition Integration and Management Center, ASC; as well as a small business contracting briefing by Michelle Blocker-Rosebrough, ASC Office of Small Business, and Deborah Crumity, Small Business Administration.
In the afternoon, industry and government employees had a networking opportunity in Heritage Hall as well as Q&A and breakout sessions with representatives from each of ACC-RI's three buying directorates, held in the Lock and Dam Lounge.
Carr and others touched upon the shift in measuring success; in the past, Army contracting was measured in numbers of dollars obligated and contracts awarded. With readiness now the Army's number one priority, contracting must measure its success in terms of how readiness is impacted.
"It doesn't matter if we are buying cattle troughs out at Tooele Army Depot or we're buying or support for an Enterprise Resource Training System, they all support readiness," said Carr.
Social Sharing