UID Supplier Alliance (USA) Update

The USA committee formally assembled in November 2007. The committee observed its 6-month milestone with a Strategic Meeting on May 9, 2008 in Pittsburgh, PA. The committee reviewed its progress and status to date and sought to capitalize on activities to date by refining the overall strategy and defining a “go-forward” plan.

USA Committee’s Six Month Accomplishments include

The committee’s success to date can hardly be overstated.  In a mere six months this grass roots organization of competing vendors has been able to substantively and productively engage the senior staffs of a numerous elected officials.  In every case the response has been supportive and in many cases enthusiastically so.  The chief of staff of one Congressman went so far as to state the effort is every bit as professional as seen from high priced Washington DC lobbying firms only much better received since the effort is grass roots in nature. The highlights:

• Two successful rounds of Hill visits to targeted legislators; enthusiastic response highlighted by a committed willingness to assist in future efforts including future legislative reporting language and requests of GAO and DoD leadership
• Development of USA information and promotional literature to include tri-fold brochure and briefing materials designed aimed at specific senators and representatives
• Crafted presentation for Sacramento UID & e-Business Forum including formulation: Questions for UID Vendors designed to ensure conference attendees have as productive an experience as possible
• Revised and updated UID/IUID definition in Wikipedia

Ongoing Strategies include

The USA Committee’s efforts are anything but complete.  Future efforts will target getting legislative reporting language into the next round of legislation later in the year.  In the meantime the committee will be focusing on a number of initiatives to include:

Improve UID Implementation

• Seek to ensure the DFARs UID clause requirement is included in all solicitations, RFPs and contracts written by the Services.  The desire is to push for contract writing software used across DoD be modified to automatically include DFAR 252.211-7003. 
• Continue building support for future legislative reporting language and craft correspondence to promote this agenda
• Look to influence the Services directly where possible and other areas of government such as DHS, FDA, et cetera where it make sense
• Continue seeking quality examples of UID policy implementation where benefits and return on investment has been demonstrated in a compelling manner

Communication Outreach Strategies

• Develop executive summaries, media kits, white papers and articles to organizations and publications as needed to promote the UID initiative with a specific focus on addressing current concerns

Targeted Outreach and Communication Efforts

• Seek to improve Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) support
• Prepare briefing awareness packages to educate future political appointees as they enter the Senate confirmation process
• Seek to influence the populations of other DoD stakeholder communities such as with DoD contracting officers by reaching out to professional groups such as the National Contract Management Association (NCMA)
• Solicit maintenance/logistics leadership to create a need for adoption and show support for DoD maintenance community Serialized Item Management (SIM) efforts
• Link UID implementation to stakeholder best practices i.e., Lean Six Sigma

For more information and to get involved, contact AIM North America or call +1 724.934.5688.