Audit Prep

Compliance software means at least three different things, and vendors selling all three use nearly identical language to describe them. A platform for CMMC cybersecurity assessment, a platform for FAR and DFARS acquisition compliance, and a platform for AS9100 supplier quality management will each tell you they make your organization audit-ready and continuously validated. None…

Most contractors treat their SPRS score like a formality: fill it out once, upload it, move on. Then a contracting officer pulls it during source selection, or a prime asks for it before adding you to a subcontract, and the number turns out to matter a great deal more than anyone expected. There is no…

Most compliance officers didn’t choose the spreadsheet. It’s what was already open the day the first contract with a flowdown clause showed up, and it just kept growing from there. One tab became five. Five became a workbook nobody wants to open on a Friday.  The trouble is a spreadsheet doesn’t fail the way a…

Why Shifting the Burden to Contractors Made Defense Manufacturing Better  For most of the last eighty years, the story of aerospace and defense compliance has quietly been rewritten around one central question: Who is responsible for quality? The plot twist is that the answer has ultimately been good for everyone.  If you have spent any…

Many defense manufacturers think of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) as the agency that arrives when it is time for an audit or formal review.   That is only part of the picture.   For manufacturers with active Department of Defense contracts, DCMA oversight may be an ongoing part of doing business. The agency does not…

The Defense Contract Audit Agency does not show up unannounced and start pulling files at random. DCAA audits follow predictable patterns. The contractors who handle them well aren’t the ones with the best lawyers — they’re the ones who understood what was coming and kept their records current. This is a practical guide to what…