AIM-9 Missile – Captive Air Training Missile (CATM) – photo credit Cpl. Jonathan Waldman

This week DLA Land and Maritime is currently performing market research to find new manufacturers of a specific float valve used with the AIM-9 missile. This specific float valve has been provided by the same manufacturer for close to 20 years and who appears to be a contract manufacturer/job shop according to BidLink procurement history. What can that mean to you? Just because it’s called a valve does not necessarily mean it’s made by a “valve manufacturer”.

Although the AIM-9 Missile is a Navy Program with Air Force as a joint participant DLA still gets involved especially when it comes to spares. DLA is responsible for buying millions of parts used by all the services. If your company manufactures anything, this one is worth looking at. A complete drawing package for this float valve will be available for any company to review and potentially become a new supplier.

The process for this notice which is currently open this week is, DLA receives public responses, completes their market research and then considers posting a solicitation and subsequent award. An Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC) or Long Term Contract (LTC) will be awarded to one company for this item. The Estimated annual demand for this item is over 3,100 units each year. According NSN procurement history found in BidLink for NSN 4820-01-372-6031 the average unit price is over $70.00 each. This single contract could be a significant order for any small contract manufacturer; the potential contract value is close to a quarter of a million dollars per year. These LTC type contracts are the dreams of every contractor.

We were interested to see what other information, conclusions

or possible business opportunities we could ascertain from the data we have

access to. This is what we found: The float

valve is part of a tank supplying coolant to the missile components of the

AIM-9 Sidewinder when in flight. The

entire coolant tank assembly (model series TMU-72) was repaired by Mass

Systems/Ametek Ameron (Stock ticker AME) due to a contract awarded by Naval Air

Systems Command (NAVAIR) in 2018.

There are thousands of DOD contracting opportunities just

like this one. Successful government

contractors do more than simply search for solicitations, they perform additional

research, diving deeper looking for trends, seeing what other opportunities

might arise.

Finding government contract opportunities such as this are simple, I used keywords float and valve to find this notice. However searching for solicitations is only part of the formula for winning more government contracts. When the quality, quantity and diversity of data analyzed goes up, your picture gets clearer, potentially leading you to undiscovered business opportunities.

This article started out as a simple posting for valve manufacturers to see a possible bid opportunity. After looking at associated parts, where they are used, awarded contracts, companies involved, patterns began to appear and successful government contractors look at all of these. Try it for yourself.

BidLink has been a leading provider of DOD procurement research tools and data for the past 20 years. Find defense contracts, solicitations, sources for items, and research competition. Learn more at www.bidlink.net