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Air Force names 2017 Superior Suppliers

  • Published
  • Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
The Department of the Air Force, along with its service counterparts in the Army and Navy, announced its top performing industry partners for 2017. These ratings are part of the Defense Department’s Superior Supplier Incentive Program, or SSIP, designed to incentivize contractor performance in the areas of cost, schedule, technical performance, management, regulatory compliance and small business utilization. 

This is the fourth year the services have ranked defense suppliers in an effort to maintain open communication and transparency. This year, 43 business segments, representing 25 suppliers, were rated by the Air Force. 

“We want to recognize our top suppliers,” said Col. John Simeoni, the Air Force Industrial Liaison Office acting chief.

Prior to SSIP, supplier feedback was accomplished only contract-by-contract through the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System, or CPARS. SSIP extends these contract ratings into a more holistic voice of the customer relative to supplier performance by creating an overall assessment from the CPARS data. Companies are evaluated using the prior three years of CPARS data and then categorized into three performance tiers, with Tier I being the best.  Tier I-rated business segments are awarded the Superior Supplier Status rating for one year. 

“SSIP provides open dialogue for suppliers to look at their performance in relation to their peers,” Simeoni said. “It’s taking the accumulation of the rater’s voices and presenting it to our suppliers’ senior leadership, their shareholders and investors.” 

Ultimately, the objective is to improve productivity while publicly acknowledging superior performance.

For a full list of the results, click here.