SMDC deputy commander connects with industry during APBI

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Alabama – The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s senior civilian spoke last week to community and industry leaders.

James B. Johnson Jr., deputy to the commander of USASMDC, spoke along with other Team Redstone leaders at the Advance Planning Briefing for Industry at Bob Jones auditorium, March 9. The briefings, which were hosted March 9-11, assist industry, research and academic partners to plan and prepare for future requirements with government contracts.

APBI’s purpose is to promote transparency in acquisition strategies by providing long-range technology and capability development objectives to industry as well as information on the potential business opportunities available with SMDC and other Team Redstone organizations.

“SMDC and most of the other Redstone partners strongly rely on contracting to perform their mission,” Johnson said. “We have found that communication between government and industry is key to having a successful contracting relationship. The more industry knows about our requirements and the more time they are given to provide a proposal that answers our requirements, we have more offerors resulting in better solutions at a lower cost.

“SMDC does not have the organic resources with our in-house military and civilians to perform all of the research and development, test and evaluation, analyses, administrative services and many other things we require to perform our mission,” he added. “Therefore, we rely on contracting to fill the gaps of things we can’t perform in-house.”

APBI includes briefings on programs that will be issuing solicitations for competitive bids within an approximately three-to-five-year timeframe. APBI is unclassified and open to all interested contractors, large and small businesses, and academia as well as other government stakeholders.

Johnson said events like APBI are important and forums like these assist in the command’s focus on ultimately supporting the warfighter.

“Both the government and industry benefit from APBI,” Johnson said. “Industry benefits because they get to hear government senior leaders describe their organizations and major initiatives. Further, the government tells industry what contracting they expect to execute in the next year or so. We provide a rough scope of what the contracting will be along with estimated funding levels, timelines and contracting strategy.

This information helps industry decide on which contracting opportunities they will pursue. The government benefits because potentially more industry partners will bid on our contracting efforts resulting in lower costs and better solutions.”

USASMDC provides industry with command requirements information throughout the year and frequent engagements, allowing industry to make informed business decisions and provide quality proposals by posting its Virtual Industry Exchange Forecast Industry Report quarterly on the command’s public website at https://www.smdc.army.mil/.

“APBI is very important to government and industry,” Johnson said. “The government must ensure we provide accurate and timely information to industry in order for the APBI to be successful.”