The Department of Defense (DOD) buys a lot of Electrical components for a variety of equipment, vehicles and aircraft. There are many types of electrical components DOD buys, today we will briefly review one type, Wiring Harnesses.

If your company wants to start selling to the Defense Department and has some manufacturing capabilities, wiring harnesses are one of the items you should consider. Over the past 20 years at BidLink our customers have asked questions like “How can I start selling to the Department of Defense?” One of the answers is “Start by going after simple items your company can manufacture”.

A wiring harness is a fairly simple item, basically consisting of a set of single conductor electrical wires bundled together (tied together with things like lacing string or cable ties) with wire terminations such as connectors or terminals at the ends. The entire assembly is known as a “wiring harness” and is not the same as a cable assembly, so when searching for government solicitations use the word wiring harness.

Building wiring harnesses is one of the many items almost any company can produce. You typically only need a few hand tools such as a wire crimping tool, wire cutter and strippers and possibly a soldering iron. If you can read a drawing, buy a few parts such as wire, connectors and cable ties, you can probably manufacture a wiring harness.

Government contracts for wiring harnesses are plentiful as the DOD posts solicitations for them every day. One of the open solicitations I found in BidLink is for 50 wiring harnesses used on the single seat F-16 Fighting Falcon (F-16C) Block 50 initially produced in the 1990’s.

The NSN for this open government solicitation is 6150-01-460-5246. The estimated contract value for this solicitation is over $150,000.00. The solicitation number is SPE4A6-19-T-79A1 and is a small business set-aside with drawings available for any company wishing to manufacture this item.

DLA Aviation ASC Commodities Division is the procuring agency. The Aviation Supply Chain (ASC) Commodities Division is located in Richmond Virginia. The Contractors quote will include a price for 50 units plus the cost of producing one First Article to be sent in for government testing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The Department of Defense awards 1000’s of contracts to companies every day for items like this, Is your company ready to start selling to DOD?

You can find this solicitation and 1000s’ of others in BidLink, simply put this NSN or solicitation in Bid Search to see the details. BidLink is an on-line tool to quickly find government contract opportunities, review past contract awards, procurement history and a market research tool. Sign up now for a free trial at www.bidlink.net