How do I bid on defense contracts as a small company that has never sold to the military?

Your first DoD contracts will likely come through simplified acquisition procedures. Agencies shall use these procedures for all purchases of supplies or services not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold. These buys are often set aside for small businesses, provided the contracting officer expects to receive offers from two or more small businesses at fair market prices. You will probably not see these on SAM.gov as their own listing. You find them through direct outreach to commands and through subcontracting. My shop does janitorial work, not machining, but the process for finding those first smaller contracts is similar.

I prefer local government work because the buyers are easier to find. On the federal side, you have to dig to find the people who buy what you sell. You need to identify the specific buying offices at NAS Jacksonville that purchase machining services. Look at the command's procurement forecast on their public website, if they have one. Look for prime contractors who do large sustainment contracts at NAS Jacksonville and contact their small business liaison officers to explore subcontractor opportunities. You can also work with an APEX Accelerator (formerly PTAC) to help identify these points of contact.

Your first DoD solicitation as a build-to-print shop is most often a DIBBS RFQ for a stock-numbered part that ships with a drawing package. The NSN in the title hides it, but a lot of those RFQs include a technical data package: the government drawing, the material spec and the inspection requirements. That's build-to-print work, it just doesn't say so up front.

The catch is access. Most of those drawings are export controlled, so you need Joint Certification Program approval before cFolders will let you download them. That's DD Form 2345, tied to your CAGE code. We filed one for a DoD A-E job and the slow part was naming the data custodian correctly, not the form itself.

What to expect on a first award:

• First article testing under FAR Subpart 9.3, since you have no production history on that part yet
• DFARS 252.204-7012 when the drawings are CUI, which pulls in the CMMC question
• Specialty metals rules in DFARS 252.225-7009 on a lot of aerospace parts

On buying offices, NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center Jacksonville does the contracting for the base, including the Fleet Readiness Center there, and DLA Aviation buys aviation spares on DIBBS. Search DIBBS by the Federal Supply Classes you can actually make, not by NAICS.

Jordan, the first solicitation for a small build-to-print shop that has never sold to the military will typically be an RFQ on DIBBS for a specific part with a drawing package. While you might not see these as large contracts on SAM.gov, DLA issues thousands of these small-dollar RFQs daily. Corinne is correct that many of these are build-to-print jobs, even if they start with an NSN. Your company’s experience with commercial aerospace parts is a direct match for the type of work DLA Aviation seeks. Focus on getting the Joint Certification Program approval and then searching DIBBS using the Federal Supply Classes relevant to your capabilities. This will show you the requirements that match your shop's existing processes.