GSA taps two vendors for SBIR Phase III pilot contracts
The General Services Administration offered new details on the $152.2 million in contracts it recently awarded as part of a new research and development pilot program.
Agency officials said Thursday they finalized two contracts to support work on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III pilot program.
The Small Business Administration runs the SBIR program and offers three tiers of R&D funding for new technologies; the first two phases test scientific and technical merit and feasibility of research ideas, and provide additional R&D funding. The third tier focuses on helping bring viable solutions to market.
In July, GSA announced the SBIR pilot, which aims to broaden the commercialization phase through a series of contracts managed by its Office of Assisted Acquisition Services and operated in its Great Lakes Region in collaboration with teams from the Federal Systems Integration and Management, or FEDSIM, program.
“GSA’s SBIR pilot allows GSA to improve the ways agencies buy, build, and use technology by delivering cutting-edge solutions to our partner agencies,” GSA Administrator Emily Murphy said in a statement. “I’m proud of GSA’s assisted acquisition team’s work on this pilot as we continue to find ways to help our partner agencies reap the benefits of their early investment in small business research and development while supporting our nation’s technological and industrial bases.”
The Perduco Group, an Ohio-based data management and technology company, secured a $150-million award Sept. 28 to support work on an automated research tool to assist in vehicle design.
The project, dubbed SBIR Topic A17-107, will provide a data-based simulation tool that can help engineers balance the need for mobility and survivability in advanced vehicle design. The contract will support work done with the Air Force’s Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation Office and follows Phase I research done with the U.S. Army Contracting Command.
GSA also awarded a $2.2-million contract to Discovery Machine Inc., Sept. 29 to help finalize work on a virtual instructor pilot program for the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command, specifically the Pilot Training Next program. The new contract will build on Phase II work done by the Pennsylvania-based automation technology company.
Both contracts will run through the length of the pilot program, which is scheduled to end in September 2019.
