Challenges with spare parts.

• Author: Dyle, James M.
• Position: Readers' Forum - Letter to the editor

* In reference to, "Defense Auditors: Why So Many Spare Parts?" (July 21, NationalDefenseMagazine.org/blog), we are a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business whose only customer is the U.S. government, and one of the top 500 Defense Logistics Agency suppliers.

All our contracts are firm fixed-price and we compete by being the lowest price on the solicitation. Even after being the lowest bidder, the solicitation is then subject to negotiation, then put on a reverse auction and negotiated again. Once awarded, we are immediately asked to expedite delivery at no additional expense to the government.

From our perspective, the government is expecting cost and pricing that is unrealistically low, often below our cost to produce an item. They are also waiting way too long to award the contracts for the spare parts given the lead times needed to supply them.

As far as holding inventory...