The Work Starts Before the Solicitation

The notice is fifteen days — or none of its own

The FAR is being rewritten under Executive Order 14275 (April 2025), and the Department of Defense has put the parts cited here into force. The rewrite kept the 15-day notice; it did not lengthen it. For a purchase over the simplified acquisition threshold — the line above which simplified procedures no longer apply, $350,000 since 1 Oct 2025:

• Noncommercial: the presolicitation notice must go up at least 15 days before the solicitation, and offerors then get at least 30 days to respond (FAR 5.101; Tables 5-2 and 5-3).
• Commercial: the notice is combined with the solicitation (FAR 12.202(b)). Under the old FAR this was optional (FAR 12.603); the rewritten text says to combine them. Unless a trade agreement applies, there is no minimum response time — only "a reasonable opportunity to respond" (Table 5-3).

At or below $350,000, no separate notice is required when the solicitation is posted on SAM.gov and accepts offers electronically, and orders under existing task- and delivery-order contracts need none (FAR 5.101(b)(1)).

For a part with drawings, testing or source approval, thirty days is time to write a proposal, not to shape the requirement — most of that happened earlier. Sources sought notices, information requests and forecasts often come earlier, but none is required.

The shaping happens in market research

The rewritten FAR Part 10 requires market research before an agency develops a new requirements document and before it solicits offers over the simplified acquisition threshold (FAR 10.001(b)). Market research informs what the government buys and who it expects could supply it. The parts a small supplier can see in public include:

• Sources sought notices — the agency asking whether capable sources exist. The answers are one input to whether the work is set aside for small business.
• Requests for information — the agency asking industry about approach, feasibility and cost.
• Industry days — sometimes the first public description of a requirement.

Draft solicitations and questions can still change a requirement later, but by then it has a shape. The rewrite also tells agencies to keep information requests to a minimum (FAR 10.001(d)) — so answer the ones that appear.

Contracts have end dates, and the end dates are public

Federal contract actions are published on USAspending.gov — who holds the contract, what it is worth, which office bought it, whether it was set aside, and when it ends. A contract that ends in the next eighteen months is a lead, not a promise: the need may be competed again (a recompete), extended, moved to another contract or dropped. But it gives you a name, an office and a date to work back from.

One part, followed through the record

The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane, Indiana, buys a machined part again and again: the TR-333 hydrophone housing, used in hydrophones for the Navy's Trident program (NAICS 332710). Each step below is public:

1. 2014 – 2025the pattern

   USAspending lists 14 Defense contracts and orders for hydrophone housings, nearly one a year.

2. 15 Mar 2018the early signal

   A sources sought notice on SAM.gov names one certified source. Qualifying another means inspection, certification, first article and operational testing, and the drawings need Joint Certification Program access.

3. 24 Nov 2025the notice

   Crane announces a five-year contract, limited to "one of the current certified sources" — three named shops. It restricts competition under FAR 6.302-1 (the exception for when only one or a few sources can meet the need), citing roughly $4 million and up to two years to qualify anyone else.

4. 29 Sep 2026the award

   One of the three wins a contract the SAM.gov award notice values at $6.5 million.

How to read an expiring contract

Five fields decide what you do first:

1. the incumbent's UEI (Unique Entity Identifier — not a name that may change)
2. the buying office (who bought it, not who needed it — finding the requiring activity is your work)
3. the end dates (USAspending shows the current one and the potential one if every option is exercised — work back from the earlier)
4. the value
5. the set-aside — a clue to how the next buy may be competed, though new market research decides it

A 30-day plan for a company without a capture team

1. 1

   List the contracts ending in your codes.

   Pull the DoD contracts in your NAICS codes — and the codes your customers buy under — that ends in the next 12 to 24 months, and sort it by set-aside.

2. 2

   Pick five.

   Choose the five you could genuinely perform, and find each one's buying office.

3. 3

   Answer the sources sought notices for work you could perform.

   A response puts your capability on record with an office that is still deciding how to buy.

4. 4

   Clear the gates before a deadline does it for you.

   Some take weeks to months.

   • SAM.gov — registration must be active when you submit an offer and at award (FAR 52.204-7).
   • Joint Certification Program (DD Form 2345) — certifies you to receive unclassified DoD technical data that discloses militarily critical technology, such as controlled drawings.
   • SPRS (Supplier Performance Risk System) — holds your NIST SP 800-171 assessment score (the federal standard for protecting controlled unclassified information); DFARS 252.204-7019 requires a current one, no more than three years old, to be considered for award.
   • DIBBS — the Defense Logistics Agency's bid board, separate from SAM.gov.

1. 5

   Have a one-page capability statement ready

   — UEI, CAGE code (the five-character identifier DoD assigns to your facility), NAICS codes, certifications, past performance and a point of contact.

2. 6

   Write to the mission, not your catalog.

   The office does not have a gap in your product line. It has a mission it needs to carry out.

Making the part is one skill. Writing an offer the government can evaluate is anotherand it takes time a company arriving last does not have.

The plan, applied to one example shop

Of 233 contracts ending in its codes, 22 were last awarded under a set-aside it qualifies for — and this week, 13 open bids were set aside for its own certification.

We ran Section 6's plan for an example profile — a service-disabled veteran-owned machine shop on FARaudit's demonstration account, not a customer — on 7 Oct 2026, using FARaudit to pull the public records.

About FARaudit

FARaudit does the first part of a capture team's work — finding the work and screening it against your registration and certifications. For a company without a capture team, it does the reading the owner has no time for; for a company with one, it frees the team for the work software cannot do.

Founded in 2026 by Jose Rodriguez, who spent eight years in program finance at Lockheed Martin — on the F-35 Lightning II's Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) and Sikorsky's BLACK HAWK® and MH-60R SEAHAWK® helicopters — where supplier packages crossed his desk at a prime contractor.

FARaudit is not a law firm, and this is not legal advice.

Glossary

Simplified acquisition threshold

the dollar line, $350,000 since 1 Oct 2025, at or below which an agency may use simpler, faster buying procedures.

Presolicitation notice

a public notice that a solicitation is coming, posted before the solicitation itself.

Sources sought notice

an agency asking capable companies to identify themselves, as part of market research. It is not a solicitation.

Request for information (RFI)

an agency asking industry about approach, feasibility or cost.

Requiring activity

the office with the need: a program office, a depot, a laboratory.

Contracting office

the office that runs the purchase and signs the contract.

Set-aside

a purchase reserved for small businesses, or for one small-business program such as service-disabled veteran-owned (SDVOSB), HUBZone, women-owned (WOSB) or 8(a).

Recompete

a new competition for work an existing contract covers, when that contract ends.

UEI

Unique Entity Identifier: the 12-character ID SAM.gov gives every registered company.

CAGE code

the five-character code that identifies a company's facility to the Department of Defense.

FAR 6.302-1

the exception that lets an agency limit competition when only one or a limited number of responsible sources can meet the need.

First article

a first production unit tested and approved before the rest are made.

Joint Certification Program (DD Form 2345)

certifies a U.S. or Canadian company to receive unclassified technical data that discloses militarily critical technology, such as controlled drawings.

SPRS

the Supplier Performance Risk System, where the Department of Defense holds a company's NIST SP 800-171 assessment score.

NIST SP 800-171

the federal standard for protecting controlled unclassified information on a company's systems.

DIBBS

the Defense Logistics Agency's Internet Bid Board System, where DLA posts requests for quotation and takes quotes.

Sources

• Executive Order 14275 (15 Apr 2025). FAR 5.101 and Tables 5-2 and 5-3; 10.001(b) and (d); 12.202(b) — Revolutionary FAR Overhaul text, acquisition.gov, read 7 Oct 2026; DoD class deviations for Parts 5 and 10 (16 Mar 2026) and Part 12 (20 Apr 2026); FAR 12.603 before the overhaul.

• Simplified acquisition threshold $350,000 — FAC 2025-06, 1 Oct 2025. FAR 52.204-7; DFARS 252.204-7019. GAO-20-75 (Nov 2019), on the 90-day delay before DoD procurement data appears on USAspending.gov.
• SAM.gov notices N00164-18-S-NB61 (15 Mar 2018) and N0016426RGP89 (24 Nov 2025; award notice posted 2 Oct 2026).
• USAspending.gov DoD prime awards, read 7 Oct 2026: NAICS 336413 and 332710 ending by 7 Apr 2028 (companies counted by UEI); awards matching "hydrophone housing".