Parts and Logistics Research Service Helps
Contractor Win Multi-Million Dollar Eight-Year Contract

The use of an electronic parts and logistics research service played a key role in winning over $40 million in defense orders, according to Richard J. Reed, President of Bell Avon, Inc. "In the past, we placed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings to obtain information critical in government bidding such as how often is the item purchased, what other companies make the item, what price has it been purchased at in the past, etc.," Reed said. "The problem is that it takes 30 days to get an answer from a FOIA filing and often you don't get the information you may want anyway. With the HAYSTACK® service, we can get far more detailed information in 30 seconds. Because the service is interactive, we can browse through the data to make sure the answers are what we are looking for. This kind of detailed information played a crucial role in our winning the lion's share of the requirements contract for making skirting components for the U.S. Navy's landing craft air cushion (LCAC) hovercraft."

 

Bell Avon, Inc. is a joint venture between Textron Marine & Land Systems & Avon Rubber & Plastics Inc. The company opened for business in April 1985. Bell Avon was originally established as the only specialized manufacturer of Hovercraft skirting systems in North America for the LCAC and the Army's LACV-30 (Lighter Air Cushion Vehicle). The skirting is the rubber assembly at the bottom of the hovercraft that is pressurized with air to provide the craft with lift. Since that time, the company diversified its production capabilities to include the manufacture of collapsible flexible fuel and water tanks. These specialty application tanks have been supplied since 1987 and are manufactured primarily for government use. This diversification has allowed the company to design, develop and manufacture a variety of "containment" type structures to fit within customer needs.

 

Multi-mission Hovercraft

The Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) is the cornerstone of the U.S. amphibious modernization program and a revolutionary means for the Navy/Marine Corps to project power or assistance for more than 70 percent of the world's shoreline. Developed, manufactured, and supported by Textron Marine & Land Systems, LCAC is in worldwide use by the Navy and is being sought for acquisition by foreign governments. Beyond the basic mission of transporting personnel and equipment from ship to shore, LCAC has become a multi-mission craft able to operate as a personnel carrier, mine countermeasures craft, and mobile field hospital. It traverses snow, marsh, ice, tundra, sand, and water; is capable of 40-knot speeds in sea state 2; and carries 150,000 pounds (68,040 kg) of cargo in overload mode.

 

While Bell Avon supplied the original skirt systems for the LCAC, as is usual, the government helped establish a competitor to bid for spare parts orders. On the first spare parts order, Bell Avon management was disappointed when they won only about 15 percent of the orders. "I don't believe that we were any less efficient than our competitor, we simply bid with less information," Reed said. "There were a wide range of parts bid out in the initial contracts. As you would expect, some parts we were able to produce at a lower cost than our competition and on other parts they were more efficient than we were. But we had no way of knowing which were which. Also, we didn't know which parts were likely to be reordered in the future. FOIA filings took too long to get answers on and often the answers just raised other questions. Essentially, we were flying blind without an effective method of pricing our products or determining which items it made sense to bid on."

 

Trying a Different Approach

A military friend of Reed's suggested that he try the HAYSTACK® Parts Research and Logistics service, offered by IHS, a leading publisher of information databases serving technical, business and professional information needs. The HAYSTACK® service includes over 40 databases from various government and commercial sources that provide information on more than 18 million parts in the U. S. Government's cataloguing system.

 

The HAYSTACK® service also contains over 25 million procurement histories for parts and services contracts awarded by U.S. federal and local governments. The procurement history provides information on manufacturers the government has purchased from, parts purchased, prices paid and dates of purchase. Businesses can use this information to help them competitively bid on government contracts, locate alternate vendors and allocate their resources to profitable, efficient projects.

 

Robust Searching Capabilities

HAYSTACK®'s superior search engine enables users to search by a wide range of criteria, databases, or commands to return hundreds of thousands of results in a matter of seconds. For example, the HAYSTACK® service performs wildcard searching in any portion of a part number, performs searches by combining multiple search keys, and tailors your printed or downloaded reports to include just the sections you need. Each database in HAYSTACK® can be searched individually by its own specific search keys. In addition, HAYSTACK® instantly cross-references your search to the supplemental databases contained in the service that have more information on the part that you are viewing. Buttons appear at the bottom of the record, linking you to the applicable databases and the full CAGE report for that record. As an enhancement, CAGE records are further cross-referenced to Dun & Bradstreet data, CCR (Central Contractor Registration) and company contact information from CatalogXpress® to ensure that you find the most current supplier information available. This complete suite of directory information and search capabilities makes HAYSTACK® your one stop source for parts and supplier information.

 

HAYSTACK® is available either over the Internet or via a direct link through a client-server software. The client server format, HAYSTACK® for Windows Online, also includes a batch search feature that generates information on thousands of items in just minutes. This information can be printed, attached to an e-mail or downloaded and then inserted into a database or spreadsheet.

 

Making an Immediate Difference

Kevin Stockstill, Military Sales Representative for Bell Avon, is the most frequent user of the database. "I find that the fastest way to find a part in most cases is by entering the national stock number (NSN)," he said. "If I don't have a national stock number, I search on the part number, which almost always generates a match. In the worst possible case, where I don't have either the NSN or the part number, then I enter a generic description. I am usually also able to find the part this way but it takes longer because I have to wade through all of the other parts that also match the description. The service not only provides the procurement history, it also gives you all the information you could possibly want on each supplier, such as their D&B number, address, phone and Web site."

 

Increasing Government Sales

"The service has helped us dramatically increase our sales to the government by bidding and managing our business more effectively," Reed concluded. "In cases where we were being underbid, we took a closer look at how frequently the government ordered the part as well as how we were making it. If the government seemed to be ordering a lot of them, then we decided in some cases to invest money in new machinery or tooling to help us produce it more efficiently. If the government wasn't buying a lot of them, then we usually decided to let our competition have the order."

 

"All in all, we were able to invest our time and money more efficiently and make much more intelligent bids," Reed concluded. "The result was that in the last two years since we have begun using the database, our share of the skirt contracts has gone up to 85 percent. Even better, the government recently decided to award long-term requirements contracts for all of the skirt components. We were awarded a contract that will be worth $40 to $50 million over an eight-year period. Because of this contract, we will be able to retain our 50 employees and add 8 new people. I would like to recognize the outstanding job done by Diane Otte, Customer Support Manager for IHS, for the knowledge, attitude and overall spirit she brought to this project. Victoria Knauf and Cheryl McCurdy also provided substantial assistance."

 

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